Post-Soviet Education Experiences in Canada

The term post-Soviet has been primarily applied to the 15 currently independent states that have regained or gained their independence from the Soviet Union, accompanying and following its dissolution in 1991. The 15 countries include 3 Baltic states, 5 Central Asian states, 3 South Caucasian states, in addition to Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.   We emphasize the word “regained” to acknowledge that some of the post-Soviet countries were independent countries under the same or similar name (e.g., Lithuania) for several decades if not centuries before they were annexed by the USSR and do not consider themselves successor states of the Soviet Union and do not view themselves as “post-Soviet while other countries or nations, even though had multimillennial histories, still existed within different territorial boundaries before they too were annexed by the Russian empire and subsequently became parts of the Soviet Union (e.g., Tajiks as an ethnic group was part of histories of Bukhara and Quqand (Kokand) emirates before they became parts of the Russian empire and subsequently, Soviet Union).  Thus, the term post-Soviet, in temporal sense, signifies the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, where the 15 republics transitioned from an imposed communist, centralized system to different independent forms of governance and economic approaches. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, the term “post-Soviet”, in our understanding, highlights relevant and referential connections between the Soviet education system and education in 15 independent states whether in terms of continuity, discontinuity or rupture.

Initially created by Western Sovietology, the term has been extensively used in various disciplines ranging from political science to development, globalization, cultural studies, to culinary, and comparative, international education, including its continued and recent use by scholars from a range of these countries, including each of the Baltic States and Ukraine. Nevertheless, there is a valid argument whether the term post-Soviet might have an “expiration date” after which it is no longer going to be valuable to make sense of social and educational experiences in 15 independent countries stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

Bolstered by initial access to field and archival sources, as well as equipped by advanced methodologies, scholars of the post-Soviet space (both Western and local) in the last 30 years have made uniquely rich contributions to the understanding of shared and divergent experiences of creative accommodation and resistance at individual and community levels in both Soviet and after Soviet periods.  In providing rich, complex and grounded data and analysis, the post-Soviet studies challenged and corrected some of the earlier assumptions in Sovietologist scholarship’, such as whether Soviet experience was the same across 8 decades, whether it was totalitarian all the time, whether all 15 post-Soviet republics moved directly towards Western democracy and free market economy. It is therefore unfair to describe the entire post-Soviet scholarship in generalized terms as promoting particular ideological and geopolitical hegemony or agenda. This is especially pertinent given that the term post-Soviet is a social construct, along with other related expressions such as “former Soviet, post-socialist, post-communist, Soviet successor state” have long been subject to scholarly debates and contestations regarding their usage and analytical value. Some have argued that these terms perpetuate a colonial mindset, while others see it as a useful pragmatic label for understanding a shared historical and geographical space. Few have equated them with term post-colonial and still others have nuanced that with the contextual peculiarities, given the constellation of contradictory discourses such as Marxism, Leninism, colonialism and nationalism, modernity and tradition, religion and secularity interacting in one space and time.  Most recently, decolonial scholars have argued that just because a concept is used, does not mean it is correct or justified and we should look at how the subjects feel about it and define themselves. If it does not represent them or offends them, we should think hard whether it is really necessary to keep on using it.

To that end, while some scholars have often clarified the rationale and context behind their use of post-Soviet and other related terminology, others have started moving beyond the term and have proposed new terms.  In recent years, the contestation surrounding the term has intensified, with alternatives such as “post-Sovietized, de-Sovietized, and formerly Sovietized” emerging in both academic and policy discourses (e.g., Resende, 2025; Sagatienė, 2023; Shchepetylnykova & Oleksiyenko, 2024). Our research team is fully aware of the evolving discourses and concepts.  We are actively assessing their advantages and limitations, as well as educational relevance as part of our team’s continued efforts to develop culturally sensitive terms to more accurately and respectfully reflect and present the complex, evolving education experiences of these communities in Canada. Our analysis shows that these concepts may be as contested as the earlier ones. For example, the recently proposed alternative term post-Sovietized or de-Sovietizing might imply that the populations of the Soviet Union were Sovietized, an assumption that is often rejected by policymakers in Baltic states, who also use words such as “never Soviet” in their discourses.

In our research project, as we indicate on the project website, especially its disclaimer section, we use the term “post-Soviet” to understand a shared historical and geographical space. There is precedent in the research literature published by both international and domestic scholars of this region and these countries for our definition and choice of terminology.

Importantly, our project's focus is situated "here" in Canada—not "there" in the former Soviet region. Our research does not examine contemporary political developments in any of the 15 states in the Baltic, Eastern Europe, Balkan, or Central Asia (born or reborn after 1991). Our primary focus is on the participant’s educational experiences in Canada, while respecting the participants views on how their Soviet and independence-era educational legacies compare with their Canadian experiences and continue to interact with intergenerational integration processes among immigrant families in Canadian society. The project is not political in nature; it is firmly grounded in pedagogical inquiry. It does not aim to evaluate or judge the quality of the Soviet formal curriculum or educational systems. Furthermore, following our critical-constructivist methodology, we are open to continued dialogue with our participants, students of families from these countries, their parents, and their teachers, and discussing different perspectives on quality of the students’ education in Canada, including their attitudes towards maintenance of knowledge perspectives, culture and languages brought here from their home countries.

Vitally, the research team consists of independent Canadian scholars, who have connections to these now independent countries such as Ukraine, Estonia, Tajikistan, Armenia and Russia. The team is committed to critical inquiry, engaging with evolving academic debates, and revising frameworks in light of evolving scholarship. Our positionalities, coupled with the critical-constructive approach, have enabled us to bring in diverse perspectives that help detect and reject political and epistemic hegemonies and agendas whether in the current post-Soviet or global landscapes.