Before the institutionalization of education, education belonged to a particular person or aristocracy. Institutionalization of education started with industrialization. Depending on the increase at factory production and mass production, labor skills had chanced, new business process had begun. This current state required to gain more knowledge and skills before starting work. Schools were the institutions that meet these needs (Ünal and others, 2005). But the aim of institutionalization of education and increase in schooling was not only to improve the skills of the labor.

At 19th century, schools served as a lever of modernity. The citizen of the modern world could train only at schools that reached a wide audience, so education provided as a public sevice at this period (Sayılan, 2001).

As is clear from these narratives, schools – like every instution – is gaining its meaning and function within the system that it takes part in. Today, schools provide the selection and certification of the labor. Also it stores and transmits the dominant culture, and it defines it as a legitimised knowledge. Thus, it provides the continuity of social inequalities, privileges through the cultural transmission. Schools also takes over the function of teaching all the things ( behaviours, standarts, thinking patterns etc.) that can serve to the ideological hegemony of the dominant groups (Apple, 2006).

Schools performs this function through strict discipline rules; control mechanisms; standard educational programs; boring and authoritarian teaching methods. Another function of schools, which is related to listed above, is reproducing social inequalities, discrimination, exclusion and social segregation by its own mechanisms.

In Turkey, this is seen most clearly in areas that schools built. Today most of the cities have lost their public space character. Opportunities in urban areas are not accessible for everyone. This social segregation and spatial fragmentation cause socio-spatial division at schools (Ünal and others, 2010).  This divison creates schools with different qualities in the same region. Also it deepens ethnic, cultural, religious, gender and class inequalities.

This segregation happens not only between schools, but also within a school. This study will focus on educational experiences at school in Turkey. What kind of segregation dynamics are created by this experiences? To answer this question, basic dynamics of social segregation in Turkey will be examined, which are gender, social class, ethnicity, and religious origin.

• Apple M. (2006), Eğitim ve İktidar, (Çev: Ergin Bulut), Kalkedon Yayınları, İstanbul. • Conger, D. (2004). Understanding Within-School Segregation in New York City Elementary Schools. Unpulished Dissertation. New York University. • Kiraz Z. (2009). Kent İlköğretim Okulları Arasındaki Ayrışmanın Dinamiklerinin Çözümlenmesi: Ankara İli Çankaya İlçesi Örneği. Ankara Üniversitesi Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Yayınlanmamış Yüksek Lisans Tezi. • Kozol, J. (2005). The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. New York: Crown Publishing. • Punch, K. F. (2005). Introduction to Social Research–Quantitative & Qualitative Approaches. London: Sage. • Rivkin, S. G. (1994). Residential Segregation and School Integrtion. Sociology of Education 67(4), p. 279-293. • Sayılan F. (2001), “Paradigma Değişirken: Küreselleşme ve Yaşamboyu Eğitim”, Cevat Geray’a Armağan, Mülkiyeliler Birliği Yayını, p. 609–624. • Strtesky, P. B., Hogan, M.J. (2005). Segregation and School Disorder. The Social Science Journal, 42, p. 405–420. • Ünal L. I., Tural N., Aksoy H. H., (2005), Mesleki Eğitim ve Yaşam Boyu Eğitim: Ekonomi Politik Bir Değerlendirme, Yaşam Boyu Öğrenme, Pegem A. Yayıncılık, Ankara. • Ünal L. I., Özsoy S., Yıldız A., Güngör S., Aylar E., Çankaya D., (2010), Eğitimde Toplumsal Ayrışma, Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, Ankara. • Willms, J. D. (1996). School Choice and Community Segregation: Findings From Scotland. In A Kerckhoff (Ed.), Generating Social Stratification: Toward a New Research Agenda. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.