CRRC, ARISC, and American Councils are pleased to announce the 8th session of the Spring 2025 Tbilisi Works-in-Progress series!
This week’s session will be in hybrid format in-person at the CRRC Georgia office (Chavchavadze Ave. 5, Tbilisi, Georgia, 0179) and online via Zoom.
“Higher Education in Soviet Successor States from the Perspective of Early Career Academics: Are we Post Post-Soviet?“
Khatuna Buskivadze, Caucasus University
Wednesday, April 23, 2025 at 18:30 Tbilisi time (10:30 am EST)
Defining “Post-Post Soviet” is a challenge. Other disciplines, like art and geography, have grappled with the term, often viewing remnants of the Soviet past as progress markers. Compliance with the Bologna Process is a step forward but does not necessarily indicate a new era. The 2018 book 25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries, by Smolentseva et al., examines these changes but stops defining what comes next.
Since 1991, the 15 Soviet successor states have introduced reforms in higher education, including private institutions, tuition fees, multi-cycle programs, national admissions exams, international partnerships, and institutional autonomy. These changes have had varying degrees of success, prompting three key questions:
- What policies or events signal a departure from the Soviet higher education model?
- What aspects of the Soviet system persist?
- Is “Post-Soviet” still a useful framework for analysis?
This talk invites early career scholars from these countries to explore these questions and reflect on their academic identities. While “Post-Soviet” has long framed discussions, it may be time to redefine the era.
This talk also aims to discuss a sample chapter on Georgian setting and, therefore, illustrate the metamorphosis of Georgian early career scholars’ identities.
Presenter:
Dr. Khatuna Buskivadze: Affiliated Associate Professor at Caucasus University in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 2024, Khatuna Buskivadze received her PhD in English Philology from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, specializing in sociolinguistics. Her research interests include higher education, language attitudes, translanguaging, interactional sociolinguistic and conversational analytic approaches, and language use in the foreign language classroom. She has participated in exchange projects funded by Erasmus+ in Poland and Estonia.
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Works-in-Progress is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the CRRC office at Chavchavadze Ave. 5 and online. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) Georgia, the American Councils for International Education, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public. In observation of the spirit of the Chatham House Rule, the talks will not be recorded, and we courteously request that the other participants refrain from recording and/or distributing recordings as well or citing anything expressed therein in the press without explicit permission. The opinions expressed in WiP talks are those of the speakers alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC, ARISC or of American Councils.
