This paper aims to look into the evolution of the militarised gendered national identity in a selected set of textbooks of three different curricular periods in Turkey. The curricula placed under scrutiny are thought to reflect significant developments in Turkey’s educational policy and Turkish politics in general. The central question of the research described in this paper is whether the gendered militarised national identity promoted in the textbooks has been transformed in the past fifteen years, and if it did, what is the nature of this transformation. The theoretical framework of the research is informed by feminist literature on gendered national identity in Turkey and critical theories of education. Both streams of analysis pay particular attantion to the historical development of power relations. One body of scholarship on gendered national identity in Turkey has focused on the gendered nature of the construction of national identity during the process of Turkish modernisation and the hegemonic struggles between the modernists and Islamists, each of which has sought to institutionalise its gendered vision of national identity. According to this body of inquiry, western-oriented modernists sought to transform the traditional gender roles and redefine women’s place in the society in order to break the nation’s ties with its Ottoman past and initiate a civilising process for the nation (Çagatay & Soysal, 1993; Kandiyoti, 1991, Göle, 1996). Equality between the sexes was one of the emphasized principles of the new regime (Arat, 1997) although the way it was framed was far from meeting the expectations and demands of the feminists of the time. Moreover, a close link was built during the early years of the republic between the discourse of women’s rights and national liberation (Nagel, cited in Gülen, 2015). Although women were largely identified with their role as mothers and accorded the status of heroic fighters only in exceptional cases (Altinay, 2004), they were praised by the national leaders of the time for their participation in the national liberation struggle (Moghadam, 1993). Their contribution to the national liberation was given as a justification for granting them equal rights and social status (Abadan-Unat, 1981), which was met by fierce resistance of the opposition in the parliamant (Kirkpinar, 1998). Anatolian women who displayed heroic deeds in order to safeguard the nation were portrayed as the ideal women of the nation in the discourses of the politicians (Toska, 1998). Textbook images and narratives of warrior heroines of Anatolia are not alien to those who have gone through formal schooling in Turkey. Against this background, this paper aims to trace the evolution of gendered militarised national identity in Turkey’s textbooks and curricula with a particular focus on the transformation of the roles and identities ascribed to women. The choice of periods selected for comparison has been informed by educational policy change in Turkey. The first period that the paper focuses on is the period between 2005-2011, when constructivist curricula was introduced. This was a time when European Union (EU) membership negotiations were underway. The curricular change of this period was linked by some studies to the EU membership process (see Aksit, 2007; Kosar-Altinyelken, 2011) whereas others have argued that these studies took for granted the role of the EU membership process and failed to see the link between the curricular change and ideological transformation in the education system of the time (see Sen, 2018). The second period that the paper explores is thought to reflect the era initiated by a compulsory schooling reform known as the 4+ system while the third one is the period initiated by the 2017 Curricula, which was declared to have a value-oriented approach.

In order to be able to trace the historical change, a comparative approach was adopted in the inquiry described in this paper. Comparative analysis is often employed in the study of social change, and despite the unavailability of fixed procedures for comparative method, some of our nuanced understandings of society and culture are achieved through comparison (Moghadam, 1993). Three different curricular periods that have been scrutinized are the Constructivist Curriculum period (2005-2011), the 12-year compulsory education period (2012-2016), and the latest curricular period, which is known as being value-centered (2017-2020). The textbooks have been analysed through Narrative Analysis and the tools of Critical Discourse Studies. Narratives are sense makings instruments (Gee, 2001) that reconstruct the past with a view to finding meaning and purpose in the present (Bentrovato, 2015). They simultaneously imagine the future through, as Gee (quoted in Bentrovato, 2015) puts it, “simulations” that “help us prepare for action in the world” (p. 16). Critical Discourse Studies place a particular emphasis on the historical context of discourses as well as power relations; hence it is thought to help with the analysis required to answer the research question. Particular attention has been paid to the intertextuality of textbook content in order to locate the textbooks and curricula in the current education policy debates. The subjects selected for textbook analysis are Social Studies, Turkish Language, History, and History of Turkish Revolutions and Ataturkism. These subjects have been selected since it is thought that they will yield the most relevant data for the research. A total of 24 textbooks have been analysed within the scope of the study.

Preliminary findings show that there has been a shift in the way gendered militarised national identity is dealt with by the textbooks of different periods. While the textbooks of all periods extoll the virtues of the women of the nation who heroically fought for the nation’s survival and future, there are shifts in the way the textbooks situate the women, which could be linked to the shifts occurring in the construction of the national past. Whereas the earlier period textbooks tend to emphasize the pre-Islamic past of the nation and its warrior women who were claimed to hold an equal status with men, the 3rd period textbooks construct the gendered militarized national identity by engaging with a differing historical narrative on the nation’s past. The 3rd period textbooks emphasize the Islamic virtues of the warrior heroines, who stand out for their contribution to the Islamic conquest of new lands and spread of Islam there. The discourses of the earlier period textbooks build a link between women’s participation in the wars and their entitlement to equal status while equality discourse seems to have been evicted from the 3rd period textbooks. Moreover, attempts at fashioning a new form of gendered national identity through the narration of 15 July 2016 Coup attempt can be discerned. Women of current Turkey are depicted as agents stepping back onto the stage of history in order to defend the nation when its future is at stake. The differences observed between the textbooks of the three periods resonate with the shifts observed in the gender politics of the Turkish government, which is characterized by its rejection of gender equality and foregrounding of gender difference instead. However, the process whereby this shift occurs is not a smooth one and bears multiple contradictions, which the paper aims to discuss briefly.

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