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In the former Soviet Union, the upbringing of children in the spirit of Marxist-Leninist values was central to the project of societal transformation. More than 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is important to understand how the education of young children in this region has changed in response to a world rapidly globalising and increasingly driven by market economic policies. Just how much have post-socialist states, as others across the world, reoriented their educational projects to ensure the development of individuals maximally adapted for the information economy of late capitalism? This study probes this question through the critical discourse analysis of a genre of early literacy textbooks – bukvari – used widely throughout the Soviet and post-Soviet education system. Through comparison of literacy texts published in the late Soviet era with those used over the past two decades in independent Latvia and Ukraine, we explore how discourses representing children and their behaviors – what we call ‘literacies of childhood’ – have evolved during post-socialist transformations. In contrast to the predominant assumption that values common to socialism should have given way to cosmopolitan, neoliberal principles, we find surprising flows and modifications between visions of the ‘Soviet’ and ‘post-Soviet’ child. Most significantly perhaps, our analysis reveals that even the most recent textbooks reject assertions of a global and future-oriented citizen, instead idealising visions of a distinctly national Latvian or Ukrainian citizenry, growing up in a trapped-in-time, ethnically and linguistically homogenous homeland.
Notes
1. It should be noted, however, that there has been some fantastic scholarship applying the concept of governmentality to studies of education in the post-Soviet context, such as Viktor Stepanenko's (1999) and Olena Fimyar's (2011) work, both on Ukraine. See also studies by Millei and Imre (2010) and Millei (2011).
2. The Latvian sample of textbooks as well as some of the Soviet era texts were either part of Iveta Silova's personal collection or were acquired by her in Latvia in the fall of 2010. All of the Ukrainian texts, including those Soviet texts produced in Kyiv, were acquired by the authors’ colleague Dr. Olena Fimyar. These textbooks were either purchased in Kyiv and Kherson or procured from the collections of public schools in the Kherson Oblast in the fall of 2010.
3. The Latvian sample includes five out of six textbooks which have been approved by the Ministry of Education for use in Latvian and Russian language schools in the first grade at the time of this study (as listed by the MoE National Center of Education 2012). The sample does not include any of the Russian language literacy primers which are currently approved by the Ministry of Education. All of the other textbooks in the Latvian sample have been approved by the MoE at the time of their publication, bearing a statement of Ministry approval at the front page of each textbook. The Ukrainian sample includes three out of four Ukrainian language texts not only approved, but recommended, for use in Ukrainian language schools in the first grade at the time of this study (as listed on a ‘List of recommended textbooks for Ukrainian language schools for the school year 2010–2011’, Ministry of Education of Ukraine 2011a). As regards Russian language texts published in Ukraine, this sample uses two out of the three texts recommended for the teaching of Russian in Russian language schools in Ukraine (‘List of recommended textbooks for Russian language schools for the school year 2010–2011’, Ministry of Education of Ukraine 2011b). Interestingly, and deserving of further inquiry, this study's sample of Ukrainian published textbooks does not include any of the four books that are ministry-recommended for the teaching of Ukrainian in Russian language schools.
4. Difficult to translate precisely, the term ‘rodina’ can be rendered ‘native land’ or ‘birthplace’, but with an etymological root ‘rod-’ signifying ‘genus’, or ‘type’, or even ‘race’, it contains strong connotations of the ‘homeland’ construction – the mapping of blood-to-soil.
5. The Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the Soviet Union were a series of nation-wide centralised exercises in rapid economic development in the Soviet Union. These plans dealt with all aspects of development, including capital goods, consumer goods, agriculture, transportation, communications, health, education and welfare. As Kirschenbaum (2001) states, the First Five-Year Plan (1928–1932) was specifically geared towards the ‘construction of the emblematic child’ and the reworking of earlier institutional arrangements and conceptions of the nature of children (6).