Browsing by Author "Dundua, Salome"

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    “Let's Defend My, Your, Our Batumi" - Social Movement to Save the Historic Look of Batumi
    (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi state university, Faculty of social and political sciences, 2021-06) Dundua, Salome; Karaia, Tamar
    In the history of independent Georgia civic activism has gone through an interesting path of development. Recently, the given activism has developed largely in the urban space. The preconditions for this have been accumulating for decades. Due to the difficult socio-economic situation, care for urban historical, cultural heritage and ecological health was less on the agenda. The re-urbanization of cities and the widespread idea of adapting to modern standards, which, among other factors, meant attracting investors and making significant investments in the development of the city, has led to the distortion of the historical monuments or entire historic districts in the urban space. These processes brought about a virtually complete depreciation of the urban fabric, which is historically, culturally and ecologically remarkable, and, on the other hand, resulted in civic activism. The cases of regional urban activism stand out, which we plan to discuss in this presentation on the example of the current civic movements in Batumi. Civic activism is developing around three locations in Batumi. These are Technological University, Batumi Boulevard and Batumi Riviera. All three projects are accompanied by the request for approval of the historical and cultural zone of Batumi. Batumi urban space has undergone many interventions recently, but in the report, we will review three main ones, which we think can be analyzed in a single context. These projects have several common features. In all of them, the interests of the developers are reflected and the government supports the implementation of the project (the first and third of which are supported by the people in power in the country, while in the case of Batumi Boulevard, developers cannot exceed the level of support of local authorities); All of them are opposed by civil activists and specialists in the field; And, most importantly, despite periodic successes, the issue of all of them is still unclear. All three cases selected for the study were developed in the same city, in the same period, and the actors involved were virtually the same, nevertheless, the results of these movements were different. Therefore, the research question can be formulated as follows: What were the main factors that contributed to the success/failure of the given movements? By using qualitative research methods (namely, in 2020-2021, 16 in-depth interviews were conducted with civic activists involved in the process, representatives of local government, academia and the media) we study the issue in the context of political mediation theory. This model, acting as a mediator between 'action and outcomes' (Amenta, E. et al. 1992), focuses on both the internal characteristics of the movement and the social and political environment outside the movement, as it believes that the combination of these factors influences on the success or failure of the movement.
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    Liberal-Democratic Values in the National Curriculum of General Education of Georgia
    (2020) Dundua, Salome; Tabatadze, Sandro
    The major principles of general education policy of Georgia are presented at “The Document of the National Goals for General Education” that states importance of forming and establishing the liberal and democratic values among school students. Considering the fact that after re-independence, Georgia has chosen the Western political course and therefore, the way of building a liberal-democratic political system, we reckon it is a quite interesting and noteworthy to determine the state policy in this point of view. The research question can be formulated as: how does the national curriculum of Georgia respond to the declared goals of the general education in the terms of forming the liberal-democratic values among school students. The academic literature, in this regard, mostly focuses on the political values and their role in the different curriculum (Brody, 1994; Beyer and Apple, 1998; Chisholm, 2003). Some of the authors particularly investigate the liberal and democratic values in school textbooks (Strike, 1991; Erss, 2017). However, the measurement of these values remains problematic. The given study overviews the issue of declared political values in the European countries’ relevant documents for general education goals. Also, the research uses the method document analysis method, while coding as a research instrument. In order to avoid the possible unilateralism during the study, an interdisciplinary approach is chosen (using perspectives of both education and political sciences). As the major object of the research lies in the national curriculum and its components of all three levels of general education of Georgia, a didactic approach for curriculum research is used, that mostly focuses on the compatibility between teaching objectives, contents, methods and liberal-democratic principles. The results of the study show that declaring the political values in their general education documents can’t be seen as the universal European experience. However, in some countries, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, the necessity of teaching democratic principles is emphasized. As Georgian national curriculum, its major goals are mostly focused on the teaching principles and pay no attention to maintaining the liberal-democratic values among school students. However, in broad sense, its content, especially in the courses of civic education at all levels of the general education, is clearly based on concepts, categories and principles of liberal-democratic values. It should be mentioned that, unlike the term “democracy’, the “liberal” can’t be found neither in the societal school subject standard not in the national curriculum. Nonetheless, beside the sentences and phrases in the civic education’s textbooks, even the content of school students’ assignments covers the issues of tolerance, the rule of law, minority rights, separation of powers etc. Furthermore, in the national curriculum several topics are devoted to the political education, in particular: the idea of the state, the rights, duties and control necessities of governments, the active citizenship, government forms etc. However, at the same time, the national curriculum offers only one compulsory teaching technology (constructivism), that is less relevant with the freedom of choice and diversity and therefore, with the liberal-democratic values.