2026 Theses Doctoral

Rewriting the System: A Sociocultural, Multi-Stakeholder Case Study of EFL Writing Instruction in Uzbekistan

Tagaev, Shuhrat M.

This dissertation examines the persistent marginalization of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing instruction in Uzbekistan through a sociocultural, multi-stakeholder case study of higher education and its policy context. Although recent national reforms have elevated the status of English, writing remains unevenly taught and weakly supported in teacher preparation, curriculum, assessment, and institutional practice. Grounded in Vygotskian sociocultural theory, the study uses the concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development and collective mediation to investigate how writing has been positioned historically and how key stakeholders understand the barriers to reform.

The study draws on two qualitative data sources: document analysis of curricular, policy, and reform materials across Soviet, post-independence, and contemporary periods, and in-depth interviews with eight participants in Uzbekistan’s EFL system, including university teachers, administrators, and curriculum experts. The analysis traces how writing has repeatedly been added to reform discourse without corresponding changes in the structures that shape classroom practice.

Findings show that the weakness of writing instruction is not best explained by individual teacher deficits alone. Rather, it reflects a broader structural condition in which inherited assessment priorities, institutional arrangements, and teacher-preparation patterns continue to privilege other language skills. The dissertation conceptualizes this condition as structural sedimentation: the layering of new reform language onto an institutional substrate that remains largely undisturbed. The study further argues that meaningful improvement depends on coordinated mediation across three interdependent domains: assessment systems, institutional conditions, and teacher development.

By offering a historically grounded account of writing’s marginalization in Uzbekistan and advancing structural sedimentation together with a system-level understanding of the collective Zone of Proximal Development, this dissertation contributes both context-specific insight and a conceptual framework that may be useful in other centralized EFL settings.