ABSTRACT
Since becoming independent in 1991, the Kyrgyz Republic (KR) has been undergoing numerous social, economic and political changes. In the aftermath of a 2010 conflict, the United Nations intervened, and in partnership with the Kyrgyz government, launched initiatives to help alleviate some of the perceived underlying ethnically related resentment —for example, the Unity in Diversity program. Under the auspices of the Unity in Diversity program, UNICEF Kyrgyzstan, along with a number of key government and community collaborators, developed the Multilingual Education (MLE) program, which focused on facilitating teacher training, curriculum development and community engagement with a focus on fostering multilingualism among students throughout the KR. This chapter examines data that was collected in May 2016 as part of a MLE program evaluation. Surveys were conducted among school administrators, teachers, parents and students from 14 schools in six of the seven oblasts in the KR (n=673). Additionally, data was also drawn from focus group interviews to provide a multiplicity of stakeholder perspectives on language attitudes and practices. By looking at this data through the lens of complexity theory and plurilingualism, this chapter explores how language users in the KR context enact agency to navigate the language and education spaces that were created by macro-level language policies and program interventions.
