Ideologies have influenced the development of social, political, economic, and educational concepts since the 18th century. The modern national state, on the other hand, has kept ideology's effectiveness in areas like the economy, technology, science, and education (Green & Green, 1990). When the key topic of ideology is addressed, the idea that ideology typically reflects a group's belief system and is effective in determining policy comes to the fore (Gutek, 2019; Van-Dijk, 2006).

Ideologies represent a particular group's point of view. Ideologies also serve to legitimize calls for action (Anyon, 2011). The core element of the desire for ideological legitimacy is political power's conviction and willingness to acknowledge its own decisiveness in order to guarantee society's obedience and govern it (Khong, 1995). Legitimacy is considered the reason for the existence of political power and seen as the only guarantee of its survival. Legitimacy is the cornerstone of all political rules and orders that people accept and follow in society. Ideologies also have an impact on politics through the development of economic, political, social, and educational values and judgments (Çetin, 2001; Çetin, 2003).  

Education in particular is one of the key methods the government employs to propagate its dominant ideology. Governments transfer the values ​​that reflect their own thoughts to society through education, so they perpetuate their dominance (İnal, 2008). It is obvious that ideologies in the field of education generally play an important role in the restructuring process of society (Chan, 1984) and are put forward as educational reform (Molk & Welch, 2003). Accordingly, it might be claimed that changes and reforms serve the education system under the control of the state. There is a parallelism between this thought and Althusser's perspective. According to Althusser (2014), education is an ideological state apparatus. Furthermore, Althusser argues that ideologies play crucial roles in the education process, such as maintaining the status quo, creating a rich and just society, ensuring a better future, and maintaining order in society.

Educational ideologies penetrate the global system, and bring examples of how schools ought to be administered (Fiala & Lanford, 1987). In this way, the state ensures that society stays in the order it determines and that social integrity is formed among individuals in line with its worldview (Poulantzas, 2014). The curriculum is an effective way to achieve this.  Through the curriculum, the State indoctrinates pupils with its ideologies (Apple, 1992; Murillo, 2017). According to Apple (1992) there is no neutral knowledge in the school curriculum. Instead, there is knowledge that comes from complex politics, disputes, and agreements between different organizations. Additionally, Apple (1979) underlines that the school curriculum aims to create awareness of national identity in students and that the roles of individuals are arranged with the school curriculum to promote social cohesion. Thus, the State can produce individuals who have citizenship awareness and live together in harmony with society through education. In other words, the State conveys its ideology to individuals both subtly and overtly in schools through educational changes (Stevenson, 2007). In this context, this study aims to investigate the consequences of educational reforms on students from the viewpoint of teachers and to reveal how these reforms play a role in expressing the state's ideology. The following questions guided the data collection process and data analysis of the study:

1.What are the purposes of educational reforms in the school system of Turkey in the last decade from the perspectives of teachers?

2.What are the characteristics of ideologies propagated through educational reforms implemented in the school system in the last decade from the perspectives of teachers?

The study is a qualitative study examining teachers' perceptions of the consequences of government policies on educational reforms. Qualitative research is conducted through methods such as ethnographic research, phenomenological research, narrative and case studies (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). This study was designed in a phenomenological approach. Phenomenology is the study of opinions about a phenomenon or concept (Creswell, 2013). Further, phenomenological studies are needed to present the experiences related to the concept being studied in great detail (Patton, 2014). In this context, the study was carried out in a phenomenological pattern in order to examine the views and experiences of teachers working in primary, secondary, and high schools about state policies and educational reforms. The study group of the research consists of 18 teachers working in different provinces in the 2022-2023 academic year. The study group was determined by the purposive sampling method. The purposive sampling method gives the opportunity to examine situations and events rich in content in depth. Snowball sampling, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used in the study. The snowball sampling approach is believed to be particularly successful in finding individuals with in-depth subject knowledge (Patton, 2014). In this study, an information form containing the demographic characteristics of the participants and a semi-structured interview form were used as data collection tools. The interview form included questions revealing teachers' views and experiences on educational policies and educational reforms. First, review of the literature was carried out to prepare the questions. After creating the interview form, expert opinions were requested. Following that, the form was redesigned and applied to the teachers. The Ethical Review Committee approved the research. In addition, participants were asked to consent before the interviews began. During the data collection process, all interviews were audio-recorded and each interview lasted approximately 40 minutes. The qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis in this study. While identifying themes from the data, the content analysis makes the researchers' workflow easier (Yildirim & Simsek, 2016). The data were analyzed according to Miles and Huberman’s (1994) procedure. In the process of analyzing the data, firstly recordings were listened to before interview transcription. Second, all data were examined in light of the research questions. Third, data were grouped, transcriptions were coded, initial codes were created, and the themes were identified. Finally, these all were used to depict teachers’ experiences and perceptions of the role of government policies in educational reforms.

According to the findings of the study, eight themes emerged regarding teachers' perceptions of the role of government policies on educational reforms. These include "education and the goals of education, the influence of education on society as a magic lamp, schools as the locus of ideological hegemony, the curriculum as an ideological scheme of education, educational reforms and synthesis of Islam, teachers as implementers of reforms, education as a puzzle board, and education as the ideological apparatus of the state.”. Teachers first emphasized the significance of education, the general and specific goals of education, and the role of education in society while explaining the implications of state policies on educational reforms. A large number of teachers highlighted that the state created an ideological hegemony through schools, and asserted that the state conveyed its ideology to students through the hidden curriculum. Moreover, the majority of the teachers claimed that the most recent educational policies had been developed within an Islamic framework and that the reforms implemented for this reason had altered the rules by taking a different course from the policies that had been in existence before. The number of teachers who claim that the current government retaliated against the previous government under the name of compulsory education policy and presented their own truth as an education policy is too great to be underestimated. While most of the teachers explained that teachers could do nothing about the implementation of educational reforms and remained silent in a passive situation, a small number of teachers emphasized that the reforms had no effect unless they wanted to. Almost all of the teachers believe that the ideology of the state is transferred to the society through education, that the state utilizes education as a tool and accomplishes its ideological objectives through education.

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