“File:Kazakhstan-Flagmap.svg” by Kamran.nef is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Kazakhstan is a relatively young country that is still in the process of nation building with civic and ethnic discourses co-existing and competing. Nation building process in its turn brought retraditionalization and a backward shift for gender equality. Most of the schools in Kazakhstan provide instruction in Kazakh or Russian, and the Kazakh language is being strongly associated with national identity.
Existing literature looks separately on nation building and language, and nation building and backward trends in gender. There is a lack of literature that: (a) Examines the role of language of instruction in shaping students’ attitudes towards gender roles and national identity; (b) Examines the relationship between students’ medium of instruction, national identity and attitudes towards gender roles at school. This research will address the gap in the literature on the relationship between medium of instruction, national identity and attitudes towards gender roles in Kazakhstan. It will contribute to the wider debate on the relationship between language and civic and ethnic national identity and fill in the gap in the literature on the relationship between the medium of instruction and attitudes to gender roles in Kazakhstan
