Theoretical Framework

Policies are purposeful statements which specify principles and actions targeting to reach desired goals or to deal with a problem or a need, policies bring about change and possibilities of change both through production and enactment stages (Heimans, 2011).  They  shape micro-levels of society by setting parameters of thoughts and actions which are conceivable and enacted upon. For this reason, the language of policies is not value-free or neutral and policy texts often represent ideological tenets explicitly (Hernandez, 2013). Ideological tennets of policies which influence the ways people perceive the world are embedded in the language of the policy texts (Bacchi, 2000). Discursive framing of policy texts affect how policies shape perceptions of reality and reveals the forces shaping the texts  (Monkmann and Hoffman, 2013, Doherty, 2007). As education policy making process is under the influence of a complex system of different interest groups, formal institutions and organizations, educational policy analysis necessitates exploring the relationship between policy texts and their historical, political, social and cultural context (Marginson, 1993; Thomas, 2004).

 Education is seen as a major area for the reproduction of social relations, including representation and identity formation, but also for possibilities of change (Blommaert & Bulcaen, 2000). In Turkish context, education has been used as a tool to construct a gender identity through discourses in textbooks and policy documents controlled by the government. There has been an emphasis on women’s education in order to create a new generation of women with conservative Islamist values and morality (Arat, 2010). Educational policies and policy discourses promotes orthodox understanding of women’s status which limits women’s choices and engagement in the public world and makes women disadvantaged in terms of their access to resources, economic opportunities and participation in democratic process (Annin, 2009; Arat, 2010).

The purpose of this study is to examine the discursive structure of educational policies of Ministry of National Education on gender equality in the last decade in Turkey. The following questions guided the data collection and data analysis.

1. What type of gender discourses frames education policies in Turkish context? 
2. How gender identity is reflected in educational policies in Turkey in the last decade?

The present analysis aims to examine the policy texts as discursive practices that create, shape and produce truths and its relationship to social context in order to reveal the discursive juncture where gender inequalities are created through ambiguities and contradictions within and across policy and discourse (Allan, 2008). The study utilized Critical Discourse Analysis in order to investigate the ways discursive framing of policies shape gender identity (Allan, Iverson and Ropers-Huilman, 2010).

Promoting gender equality is a core activity for the European Union (EU). Equality between women and men is a fundamental EU value, an EU objective and a driver for economic and social growth. (European Commission, 2015). As a candidate country, Turkey initiated and completed several EU supported projects to increase the enrollment rate of girls in schools and to create  gender sensitive school environment. Despite these practices the recent educational policies that were initiated by the government gave rise to some contradictory results such as keeping girls out of school through providing them distance education opportunity after 4 years of elementary education. The gender identity emphasized in policy texts and female representation in policy document are important as gender roles and roots of gendered practices in the society are reproduced through policy discourses. An investigation of how policy texts creates a certain gender identity and ideologies embedded in these documents might addresses this prominent issue in a critical way.

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