Intersectional gender structure and the political impact of Western education: A comparative historical analysis

Cross-border educational mobility of citizens of developing countries to advanced democratic nations has been associated with democracy in developing countries (Atkinson 2010, Freyburg 2015, Gift and Krcmaric 2015, Mercier 2015, Spilimbergo 2009). This relation between Western education and democratization hinges on the assumption that Western education challenges persisting structures of inequality by equipping underprivileged groups with social and cultural capital. However, strong disparities in access to Western education have persisted across different types of programs (Dassin 2013, Dewachter et al. 2022). In my paper, I investigate the relationship between the intersectional gender structure, Western education of non-Western citizens from developing countries and sociopolitical inequality in these sending countries. Adopting a mixed-methods research design that combines in-depth interviews, focus groups, and secondary evidence analysis, I test whether women and particularly women from lower socio-economic background are able to access Western education similarly to their male counterparts. I use comparative historical analysis of post-Soviet Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, selected through most-similar systems, to trace causal processes and mechanisms in this relationship. Embedded in interdisciplinary debates across comparative politics, sociology, and education studies, the study is important in identifying if and how certain segments of the population get filtered out of the selection into Western education. As a result, the findings are relevant for the processes of internationalization of education and have important implications for the restructuring of Western educational opportunities in a manner that unfolds their democratic potential.