The article analyses one of the main elements of the Soviet political doctrine, as well as the principles of Soviet education -- internationalism and its implementation at school. Internationalist upbringing and the accompanying "friendship of nations" become the main axis of this article, not only in terms of the concepts themselves and…

Language education and schooling are important topics in post-conflict contexts. This study explores the existing situation of mother tongue education in the de facto Abkhazia. The study had the following research questions: (1) What was the ethnic composition of Abkhazia during the Soviet Union, and how Russian occupation changed it? (2) How well…

Notwithstanding the introduction of education multilingual policies worldwide, testing and assessment procedures still rely almost exclusively on the monolingual construct. This paper describes a study, part of a larger project fostering a new multilingual education policy in Israeli schools, exploring bi/multilingual assessment. It included two…

Through the example of the establishment, functioning, and closing of bilingual schools during the Soviet occupation of Hungary, this paper aims to introduce this segment of public education in Central-Eastern Europe. In the period between 1945 and 1989, the learning of Russian as a compulsory subject was introduced, teaching other languages was…

The collapse of the Communist bloc in 1989 and then of the Soviet Union in 1991 has presented unique challenges to the educational systems in place during socialist times, and the ensuing transition in Ukraine is no exception. The introduction of Ukrainian as the sole state language when a high number of citizens still prefer to use Russian has…

The Soviet Union collapsed more than 20 years ago, but the traces left in occupied countries by this monstrous system still affect the lives of millions of people. Under the glittering surface of newsworthy events that regularly appear in the mass media, there are many other wounds hard to heal. The system of education is one of the social…

The Soviet Union (USSR) is an immense multinational and multilingual country. At the time of the Revolution (1917) there were 150 national languages spoken in the USSR and 180 recognized linguistic groups, however, 70% of the total population of the USSR was illiterate and the literacy rate of the Middle Asia varied from 1% to 5%. After 1917, mass…

Bilingualism and bilingual education in the U.S.S.R., the People's Republic of China, and Canada are discussed as a context for examining American attitudes toward and the establishment of bilingual education programs. Russian and minority languages in the Soviet Union are examined, including the early development of Soviet language policy,…

The focus of the present paper is on the relationship between national identities and foreign-language education policies and practices. The paper examines this relationship through a juxtaposition of three sociohistoric contexts in which sociopolitical events led to major changes in foreign-language education: post-World War I United States,…

The state of the art of bilingual education in the Soviet Union is surveyed. The social context of Soviet bilingualism is discussed with reference to sources of heterogeneity, modernization as a motivating factor, political dimensions, and Soviet bases of research. The sociolinguistic paradigm of Soviet society is viewed as a function of the need…

Discussing the language policy of the Soviet government with social studies students studying the USSR increases students' awareness of the multicultural nature of Soviet society and forces them to think about how such a society operates. Questions that teachers can use to lead a discussion concerning language issues are presented. (RM)