Learning to See Invisible Children: Inclusion of Children with Disabilities in Central Asia

List of Contributors

List of Contributors Editors Martyn Rouse is Professor Emeritus at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where until his retirement, he was Chair of Social and Educational Inclusion and Director of the Inclusive Practice Project. Previously he was a senior lecturer at the University of Cambridge and Director of Studies for Education at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge . He was a teacher for 16 years in London and also worked for a local authority advisory service. He has undertaken research and development work on inclusion for local authorities in the UK and for several national and international agencies, including the Department for International Development (DFID), European Agency for the Development of Special Needs Education, the OECD and UNICEF in Armenia, Bosnia, Georgia, Kenya, Latvia, and Serbia. He has carried out research for the DfES in England on the identity and status of teachers of special educational needs and is a member of several national advisory groups in Scotland. He has published widely on inclusion and special needs and is a well-known speaker on these issues. He is the co-author of Achievement and Inclusion in Schools published by Routledge, winner of the NASEN/Times Education Supplement Academic Book of the Year 2008. Kate Lapham is a Senior Program Manager for the Open Society Education Support Program and has worked in Central Asia since 2004. She has worked on education programs in the former Soviet Union since 1997. During her tenure with the Open Society Foundations, she has worked with both the Education Support Program and Early Childhood Program to support Open Society foundations and partner NGOs in the countries of the region in developing high quality programs with a par- 186 List of Contributors ticular focus on disadvantaged children, including children with disabilities , minority and minority language children, and rural populations with limited access to early childhood development services. She holds a bachelor’s of science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University. She is currently a PhD candidate in Comparative and International Education at Lehigh University. Researchers – In Alphabetical Order Galina Osmonovna Aiylchieva graduated from Cherkass State Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, as a teacher of Russian language and literature . She also has a degree in special education from Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. She began her career as a teacher in Artemovsk, Ukraine, and has served as a lecturer of Russian language at Kyrgyz State National University and a methodologist at the Republican Institute for In-Service Teacher Training. From 1977 to 2005, Ms. Aiylchieva worked at the Ministry of Education and Science in Kyrgyzstan, progressing through the ranks as an inspector, leading specialist, deputy department director, and director of school administration. She continues to serve as a consultant to the ministry and international organizations on inclusive education, including Save the Children, Soros Foundation–Kyrgyzstan, UNESCO, and UNICEF. Nina Bagdasarova studied psychology and pedagogy at Moscow State University. In 1997 she defended her dissertation at the Russian Academy of Education on the relationship of children to learning materials at various ages. She works actively on social and educational projects connected with the problems of nation-building, civic education, diversity , gender, and inclusion. Dr. Bagdasarova teaches at the American University of Central Asia in the Psychology Department. Her courses include Psychological Development and Educational Psychology, History and Methodology of Psychology, Methods for Teaching Psychology , Discursive Analysis of Psychology and Mass Communication, and Psychology of Religion. Her research interests include observational research and the intersection of psychology and cinematography. List of Contributors 187 Benjamin Gatling is a lecturing fellow in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University. He received his PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the Ohio State University. His research focuses on Islamic movements in Central Asia, Islamic literature , and post-Soviet Islam. He has published articles on narrative performance in Afghanistan and Sufi textual practices in Tajikistan. Cassandra Hartblay, MA, is a PhD candidate in the department of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on constellations of disability and political subjectivity in Soviet and post-Soviet cultural and spatial locations. Her dissertation project records strategies and forms of activism related to the social participation of Russian citizens with disabilities in public education and public space, in Petrozavodsk and Ulan Ude, Russia. Manzura Juraeva began her career as a teacher of Russian language and literature in...