A01=Brian Holmes
A01=Gerald H. Read
A01=Natalya Voskresenskaya
Author_Brian Holmes
Author_Gerald H. Read
Author_Natalya Voskresenskaya
Category=JN
child-centred learning Russia
comparative pedagogy
curriculum reform USSR
educational policy analysis
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Gorbachev era school transformation
ideological influence education
post-Soviet schooling
Product details
- ISBN 9780815311690
- Weight: 589g
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 01 Mar 1995
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Inc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In his address to the Communist Party in 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev blamed the Party for the disastrous state of his country. Within five years, the Party had been outlawed, he had been deposed, the Soviet Union had disintegrated, and its economy was in chaos. It is within this framework that the freely debated proposals to change a system of education inherited in 1917 from Czarist Russia are re-examined. During the Communist regime ideology had prevented realistic reform to the system. Under glasnost, open debate was encouraged for the first time. This book reveals the course taken by these debates and the conflicts between the personalities involved. Competing groups formulated new concepts of education. New child-centered aims were to replace those associated with the creation of a New Soviet Man. New school types and curriculums would allow pupils to specialize in either the sciences or the humanities. History teaching was to be liberalized, religious studies allowed and scientific materialism downgraded. Private and religious schools could be set up for the first time since 1917. Educational institutions could charge for a range of services, and major educational changes were agreed upon. The authors analyze these changes in light of an enormous amount of literature. In discussions with leading members of the Party (before its demise); educationalists, principals and teachers, and local authorities, the authors gained a comprehensive view of the policies before the collapse of the Soviet Union and after. But has the system changed? The authors, who have been visiting Soviet and Russian schools for more than 30 years, examine substantive changes in schools that previously had seemed old-fashioned and analyze Gorbachev's educational legacy.
Brian Holmes, Gerald H. Read, Natalya Voskresenskaya
