A historical analysis of the citizenship education policies in modern Turkey

Author(s):

Filiz Keser Aschenberger(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

17. Histories of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

17 SES 02 A,

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

15:15-16:45

Room:

K3.12

Chair:

Helena Ribeiro de Castro

Contribution

Since October 1923, when the Republic was proclaimed by Kemal Atatürk, Turkey has undergone dramatic transformations that defined its unique nation building experience. By comparison with other Western and Middle Eastern nation-states, the formation of the post-Ottoman state Turkey lacked a powerful enlightenment movement aimed at ‘awakening of Turks to national consciousness’ (Kadıoğlu 1996: 185). As Ahmad (1993: ix) puts it ‘Turkey did not rise phoenix-like out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. It was “made” in the image of the Kemalist Elite which won struggles against foreign invaders and the old regime’. The process of making modern Turkey can be well established on the basis of following radical transitions

i. a transition in the political system of authority from personal rule to impersonal rules and regulations

ii. a shift in understanding the order of the universe from divine law to positivist and rational thinking;

iii. a shift from a community founded upon the “elite-people” cleavage to a “populist-based” community;

iv. a transition from a religiously-defined community to a nation-state (Serif Mardin 2003: 19 cited in Keyman 2010: 318).

These transitions casted some unique characteristics of the modernization of Turkey. Firstly, it was a top-down, state-centric and elite-driven process (Kadıoğlu 1996; Keyder 1997; Zürcher 2010). The modernizing elite was comprised of Kemal Atatürk, his bureaucratic and military associates, and political and cultural elites who came to be known as Kemalists. The Republican Peoples Party (RPP) [Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi- CHP], founded by Atatürk, evolved to be the state apparatus, governing the modernization and nation building process (Zürcher 2010), and pursuing a concerted project of social engineering (Keyder 1997). The second characteristic of the modernization process has been the identification of modernization with Westernization (Keyman and İçduygu 2005; Keyder 1997). Modern Turkey turned its back on the East, Islam and the Arab world and embraced ‘the universal validity of Western modernity’ (Keyman and İçduygu 2005: 4). ‘Reaching the level of Western civilization’ became the supreme goal of and slogan for the modern Turkish state (Ahmad 1993; Heper 2001), echoing through the history of the young republic.

The third characteristic involves the tension between this conception of modernity as Westernization and attempts to construct a distinct ‘Turkish’ identity. The nation-building project aimed both to create a distinctive sense of Turkish culture and identity and to position the new state firmly within the orbit of Western Civilization (Kadıoğlu 2005). Salmoni (2004: 103) describes these multiple aims as the ‘convergence of modernization and Turkish nationalism’, while Çayır and Gürkaynak (2008: 51) and Kadıoğlu (1996) characterize this process as a ‘paradox of modernization and nation formation’, with ongoing difficulties in ‘achieving a balance’ between the two (Kadıoğlu 1996: 178). Within this complex and multidimensional ‘state-centric modernization project’ initiated by Kemal Atatürk and continued by his successors, citizenship education has been a key tool to create and transform the Turkish nation. Although the scope and the form of this modernization project have been transformed, central role of the state has been maintained, if not strengthened.

Within this framework, this chapter analyzes citizenship education policies, their transformation and their role as an instrument for forming modern Turkish citizens. The main question addressed is “How did the citizenship education policies change thougrought the history of modern Turkish Republic and what are the consequences of these changes?” It aims at providing a thorough picture of the contemporary Turkish citizenship education in relation to modernity project through a historical and political framework.

Method

The paper discusses the historical, political and social background of citizenship education policies in four distinct eras: the Single Party Period (1923-1950); the Multi Party period (1950 – 1980); the 1980 military coup and its aftermath and; from the 1999 Helsinki summit (when Turkey was accepted as an EU candidate country) to the present day. Each era is examined and discussed comprehensively in terms of the local and global developments and their effects on the policies and practices of how Turkish citizenship is transmitted through formal schooling to form state-defined-citizens. The curriculum and course books used in citizenship education in each era are also reviewed and presented. Histiographical analysis of the policies and qualitative document analysis were used as the approach and the historical texts were analyzed using content analysis.

Expected Outcomes

Analysis of policies and documents showed that, throughout Turkey’s modern history, in all eras, the role of the citizenship education has not changed; it has officially been perceived as central to the broader modernization and nation building project (İçdugyu et al. 1999). And while successive regimes – authoritarian Kemalist, military, civilian secularist or moderate Islamist – have adjusted course content to suit their ideological proclivities, all have retained central control over curriculum development and the production of school textbooks. Citizenship education in Turkey has thus consistently followed a ‘citizenship transmission model’ (Giroux 1980: 337), prioritising the inculcation of authorised knowledge concerning national history, the political process, administrative system and social mores. Through indoctrination, schooling has aimed to produce obedient, responsible, self-sacrificing and patriotic citizens, rather than active citizens primed to take the initiative in shaping their own society. Even though citizenship education in schools has gone through various changes since 1920s, most of these have involved tinkering with the mode of delivery (dedicated, separate courses versus the embedding of civic education messages in courses such as history or language). Although government documents have often trumpeted a commitment to upholding rights and promoting participative democracy, in practice citizenship education in schools has tended to emphasise the duties of the individual to the state, rather than the reverse (Caymaz 2008; Çayır 2009; Çelik 2008). Related to this statist emphasis has been the constant thread of nationalism, woven through the shifting ideological patterns of successive regimes (Keyman 2010), whether authoritarian modernist, democratising, globalising, pro-European and/or now Islamist. And attempts during the last 10 years to dismantle the old secularist orthodoxy arguably exacerbate the dilemmas or contradictions of official citizenship discourse, in so far as they involve redefining the national subject in a more expansive mode on the account of nationalization and Islam.

References

Ahmad, F. (1993) The Making of Modern Turkey, London: Routledge. Çayır, K. and Gürkaynak, İ. (2008) ‘The state of citizenship education in Turkey: Past and present’, Journal of Social Science Education, 6(2), 50-58. Heper, M. (2001) ‘Turkey: Yesterday, today and tomorrow’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 1(3): 1-19. Kadıoğlu, A. (1996) ‘The paradox of Turkish nationalism and the construction of official identity’, Middle Eastern Studies, 32(2): 177-193. Keyder, Ç. (1997) ‘Whither the project of modernity?: Turkey in the 1990’, in S. Bozdoğan and R. Kasaba (eds) Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, Washington, D.C.: University of Washington Press, 37-51. Keyman, F. E. (2010) ‘Modernization, globalization and democratization in Turkey: The AKP experience and its limits’, Constellations, 17(2): 312-327. Keyman, E. F. and İçduygu, A. (2005) ‘Introduction: citizenship, identity, and the questions of democracy in Turkey’, in E. F. Keyman and A. İçduygu (eds) Citizenship in a Global World London: Routledge, 1-27. Salmoni, B. A. (2004) ‘Ordered liberty and disciplined freedom: Turkish education and republican democracy, 1923-50’, Middle Eastern Studies, 40(2): 80-110.

Author Information

Filiz Keser Aschenberger (presenting / submitting)

Danube University Krems

Continuing Education Research and Educational Management

Krems

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