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Oleksandra
Inglis
Freiburg
Language question in the educational system in Mykolaivs'ka Oblast', Ukraine in the period of 2005-2012
Prof. Dr. Juliane Besters-Dilger
Slavistik
Apr 2011
Sep 2016
After the split of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine was faced with numerous financial, political and social challenges. Language question, i.e., the question of the official status of Russian in Ukraine, has become one of the most controversial issues. This was caused by the fact that while Ukrainian was the only official language in all spheres of Ukrainian life, almost half (or arguably more) of the Ukrainian population spoke Russian. This was a clear sign of Ukrainization, a policy aimed at increasing the use of Ukrainian language, which was criticized by many people, yet gladly received by others. Orange Revolution of 2005 took the policy of Ukrainization to another level mostly due to extreme politicization of the issue. By this time language was used as a political tool in all the elections. The presidential elections of 2010 were not an exception, when a clearly pro-Russian candidate was chosen to be the new president. This marked the beginning of De-Ukrainization and a new chapter in the language situation of Ukraine.
All of the above-mentioned changes had to have a significant impact on a sphere of life where language plays a crucial role in education. Proposed PhD project is aimed to find out how all the recent political changes have affected the language situation in the educational sphere in a particular Oblast (Mykolavs'ka), Ukraine in the period of 2005-2012. The study is going to examine all the layers of Ukrainian education - from school pupils to university lecturers and state officials. It will be attempted to predict future tendencies in the language situation in the educational sphere, as well as to make some suggestions for future language policies. It is also hoped that this project can become a model for similar studies in other Oblast's in Ukraine.