Alan DeYoung, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Dr. Alan J. DeYoung holds a Ph.D. in Anthropological and Sociological Studies in Education from Stanford University, and was previously Chair of EPE (2008-2012).  DeYoung has had two general areas of research. One has been in rural Appalachian schools and in the sociology, politics, and economics of educational change in rural America; the other more recent work concerns educational transformations of secondary and higher education institutions in the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Since 1995, DeYoung has had three Fulbright Scholarships: to Kazakhstan (1995-06); Kyrgyzstan (2001-02; and Turkmenistan (2016-17).

During his earlier rural education research period Dr. DeYoung published extensively on school issues and problems in West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and authored or edited three books on policy issues in rural education.  His more recent published work focuses upon educational dynamics in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he has authored over three dozen articles and monographs on education reform and challenges in each of the five Central Asian republics.  In addition, to journal articles and book chapters on education issues in these republics, he has three recent books on secondary and higher education issues in Kyrgyzstan, including:  Surviving the Transition?: Case Studies of Schools and School Reform in the Kyrgyz Republic since Independence (2006), and Lost in Transition: Redefining Students and Universities in the Contemporary Kyrgyz Republic (2011).

DeYoung’s most recent regional research has focused upon higher education reforms in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.  In addition he spent two years working for the Aga Khan University in Karachi Pakistan (2012-14, where he served as Director of the Institute for Educational Development.