From Class to Identity: The Politics of Education Reform in Former Yugoslavia, by Jana Bacevic. Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2014, pp. 235

Jana Bacevic’s From Class to Identity: The Politics of Education Reform in Former Yugoslavia is an ambitious, interdisciplinary and empirically-grounded work that makes an important contribution to the existing scholarship. Bacevic moves away from the ‘education gospel’ that has informed much of the policy and scholarly assumptions about education in the post-Yugoslav region (p. 1). She does so by problematizing the structuring role of education, both as a cause and consequence of social and political dynamics in the post-Yugoslav space. The study aims to contribute to the understanding of the role of education in social, economic and political processes that led to the break-up of Former Yugoslavia (chapter 2); the continuing ethnic and social fragmentation of the region in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars (chapters 3 and 4); most importantly, however, it helps us unravel the interaction between education and reform policies, aiming to provide new insights on the ways in which “education can contribute to emancipation without necessarily reproducing the existing social divisions or creating new ones.” (p. 3)