State Ideology and Education in Turkey, 1980–2015

Description

In today’s Turkey under the Justice and Development administration, it seems that religion becomes or is imposed as an important element of the Turkish national identity. The education system works as the channel for promoting this change. Thus, the case of Turkey is that of a nation-state that has been under construction since it emerged from a successful war of independence, and any analysis of policies needs to pay careful attention to the dominant state ideology. Set against the general historical background, this analysis examines and interprets the educational policies and decision-making in this area in relation to political ideologies. In fact, it is the series of Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) governments which, since the party’s first election victory in 2002, have implemented several reforms so as to change educational thinking in Turkey. Within this framework and especially after 2002, Islam, and most specifically the Turkish political Islam, plays an important and defining role in Turkish society. It is an agenda, consisting of market-oriented education, that includes transforming and privatising the public education system, developing policies on religious education in line with emerging notions of political Islam, promoting the growth of Islamic educational curricula, whether in Imam-Hatip schools or in higher education, and generally putting more emphasis upon Islam as an important constituent of the Turkish national identity. This book provides both historical context and state policy information in order to meet researchers’ and lecturers’ needs and expectation to learn about the characteristics of different policies used by Turkish governments in education. It enables civil society groups, researchers, university students and academics to identify problems and opportunities that the Turkish Government has been dealing with. Hence, it can be used both by researchers and policy makers as well as educators. Cover Table of contents Introduction 1. Theoretical, Methodological and Historical Consideration 2.Current State of Research PART I 1. Education and National State Building in Turkey 1. Ottoman Modernization Reforms and Education 2. Influence of the Young Turks in Modernized Ottoman Education 3. Ziya Gokalp, Turkish Nationalism, Kemalism and Education 2. The Secular State and the National Education 1. Ideological Formation of Kemalism and the Creation of a Secular Society 2. Kemalism in National Educational Policies 3. Kemalist Ideology as Mirrored in Education: The ‘Law on the Unification of Instruction’ (Tevhid – i Tedrisat Kanunu) 4. Educational Policies and Religious Courses in the Early Republican Curricula: 1920–1950 5. The Village Institutes 6. The Ankara University Divinity Faculty 3. Post World War Turkey and Education Realities 1. Education and Politics in a Changing Turkey 2. Religious Education Reforms 3. Imam – Hatip Schools 4. Islam and Education PART II 4. Kemalism, Islam and Nation in a Changing World 1. A Reformist Prime Minister: Turgut Özal2 2. The 1980 Military Junta (Coup) and the 1982 Constitution 3. Turkey’s Economic and Educational Reforms 4. Adoption of the Turkish – Islamic Synthesis 5. Özal’s Manifesto on Educational Reforms 6. Religious Education Policies in the Age of Turgut Özal 7. Turkish Ideology in 1982 Constitution 8. The Regulation of Religious Education in Turkey after 1980 5. Changing the State, Changing Education 1. The Emergence of Political Islam to Power 2. Changing Values in Turkey 3. Neo – Liberalism in Education 4. The Growth of Islamic Education 6. Combining Islam with the National State 1. New Curriculum Developments 2. AKP Policies towards Imam – Hatip Schools 3. Higher Education and AKP 4. Combination of Education and Islam 5. Islam as an Element of the Turkish Identity 7. Conclusions Sources Index