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Abstract

Educational reform in post-Soviet contexts is often framed through deficit narratives that cast local legacies as impediments to Western modernity. This paper challenges such framings by utilising a third-space lens to analyse how Kazakh language teacher educators navigate the structural constraints of state-mandated reform. We used a multimodal phenomenological approach involving five experienced Kazakh language teacher educators as research collaborators. Our methodology utilized three distinct registers of engagement: questionnaires featuring comic strips, the “Significant Circles” visual mapping tool, and dialogic interviews using metaphorical image cards. This approach allowed us to move beyond traditional boundaries of professional discourse to reveal the submerged epistemological labour of the trainers. The study provides a novel decolonial framework for understanding teacher agency by introducing “living through epistemicide” as a pathway toward epistemic freedom. Findings indicate a definitive shift from deficit discourses toward a narrative of epistemic vitality. We demonstrate how “untranslated” local pedagogical philosophies serve as vital intellectual resources for educators navigating asymmetrical knowledge systems. By mobilising these frameworks alongside imported models, educators enact a triple consciousness that resolves apparent contradictions through principled reasoning. This study unsettles global hierarchies of expertise, repositioning Kazakh teacher educators as central theorists who reclaim the right to interpret the world from their own location. Furthermore, our collaborative positionality as Kazakh and South African scholars fosters a South-South dialogue that purposefully bypasses the traditional center-periphery model of knowledge production.

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Abstract

As the Uzbek nation undergoes significant socio-political and educational reforms, there is a growing interest in pedagogical models that foster critical thinking, civic engagement, and student agency. One of the core modules, which are given to Foundation level students at Westminster International University in Tashkent is Critical Thinking and Citizenship module. This module is delivered exclusively through seminars and aims to develop foundation students’ competencies as active and informed global citizens, as it is included community engagement component, where students are trying to identify and solve problems in local communities and based on design thinking approach. The module is closely tied with targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The principal teaching methodology for this module is Project-Based Learning (PBL). Students engage in hands-on projects requiring collaboration, communication, information analysis, and problem-solving for community issues, followed by recommendations to stakeholders. Another core teaching approach integrated into the module is the Socratic Method which fostering deep inquiry. Students formulate questions, analyse answers, participate actively by offering diverse perspectives, debate, argue, and rebut (Conor, 2022).

One more key approach in the module’s development is Design Thinking, which involves five elements: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test (Singh, 2023). Design thinking is a human-centered, iterative process that builds essential problem-solving skills in students by emphasizing empathy, creativity, and real-world application. It shifts education from rote learning to active, collaborative problem-solving, preparing students for complex challenges. Through this approach, students learn to understand users’ needs, analyse problems from multiple perspectives, clearly define issues, generate ideas, critically evaluate solutions, and select the most suitable ones. It is quite innovative approach in teaching skills-based seminars, which not widely used by local academicians and usually considered being not applicable outside of engineering studies.

For this conference I am presenting research which adopts a qualitative case study approach, focusing on the experiences of instructors, students, and stakeholders involved in an active citizenship module at Westminster International University in Tashkent (WIUT). Through semi-structured interviews, the study explores the perceptions of these key actors regarding the module's implementation. In addition to interviews, I review students’ feedback on the module and analyze their final products. This research contributes to the broader discourse on educational transfer and contextualization, offering critical insights for curriculum developers, policymakers, and international educators seeking to implement transformative pedagogies in culturally distinctive environments.

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Contemporary education research predominantly applies data-driven epistemologies, standardised indicators, widely accepted ranks and instrumental policy demands, margining ethical judgment, moral responsibility, and questions of value. This paper proceeds debates on knowing and acting by centring locally grounded ethical formation as a foundational yet under-theorised dimension of higher education. Drawing on Madhok (2020), who argued that “there are not enough concepts to capture and produce theorized accounts of different, historically specific and located forms of worldmaking in ‘most of the world” (p. 395), this paper develops the concept of Tolyq Adam (the holistic person), articulated by the Kazakh philosopher and poet Abai Kunanbayev (1845–1904), as a theory-capable educational philosophy emerging from Kazakhstan, Central Asia.

Abai’s philosophy conceptualizes human development through the integration interrelated concepts such as aqyl (reason), jürek (heart), and qayrat (will). This paper interprets these concepts as mutually constitutive dimensions of ethical formation, linking epistemic judgment, value orientation, and responsible action. Tolyq Adam offers an alternative to fragmented, performative, and competence-driven models of higher education by foregrounding education as a process of ethical self-formation.

Since 2023, this philosophy has been systematically operationalised at Almaty Management University through the Tolyq Adam program developed within the School of Transformative Humanities and Education. At the core of the program lies the LEADER framework, which articulates six interrelated capacities for contemporary higher education: lifelong learning, empathy, analytical and creative thinking, dialogue and discourse, ethics and ecology, and resilience. These principles are embedded across eight compulsory general education courses reaching over 1,000 first-year students annually. In this sense, the Tolyq Adam program operates not merely as a curricular innovation but as an institutional epistemic design that redefines the purpose of general education. Survey data from 2024–2025 indicate substantial student-reported growth across these dimensions, alongside the implementation of more than 100 student-led community projects translating ethical reflection into social action.

Methodologically, the paper employs conceptual analysis and framework synthesis within traditions of educational philosophy. First, it explicates the concept of Tolyq Adam, defining and clarifying its conceptual boundaries and epistemological assumptions while addressing risks of mistranslation and avoiding its reduction to vague or universalised notions of “holism”. Second, the analysis derives three analytically distinct yet interrelated dimensions of ethical formation: epistemic (aqyl), affective (jürek), and volitional (qayrat). These dimensions are synthesised into a conceptual framework that links ethical formation to pedagogical orientations emphasising reflexivity, moral judgment, and the translation of knowledge and values into action.