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V. Foreign Higher Education and Education Systems, International Relations, Bilateral Relations
B. Essays, Commentaries, Statements
Author GRIFFITHS, Tom G. (CARDONA, Euridice Charon)
Title Education for a social transformation : Soviet university education aid in the cold war capitalist world-system / Tom G. Griffiths and Euridice Charon Cardona
Publication year 2015
Source/Footnote In: European Education. - 47 (2015) 3, S. 226 - 241
Inventory number 38841
Keywords Ausland : Rußland : Hochschulwesen allgemein ; Hochschulgeschichte : spezielle Fragen
Abstract International education is seen as an effective form of soft power. This article reviews one of history’s largest and most ambitious attempts to achieve global influence through university education, and to reshape the world—the Soviet university aid program, 1956–91. Drawing on existing research and Soviet archival materials, we lay out and contextualize characteristic features of the Soviet education aid program. Specifically, we identify its focus on students from “developing” and newly independent countries, and its ambition to form graduates who would return home to become national leaders sympathetic to Soviet socialism. We conclude by approaching the program from a world-systems perspective. Here, we highlight the intended catch-up style modernization and national economic development for countries through their participation in the Soviet university aid program as well as the intended development of the human capital of participant countries. The complex impacts on participants throughout the world and their subsequent worldview are the subject of ongoing research by the authors. (HRK / Abstract übernommen)