State Ideology and Education in Turkey, 1980-2015

"In today's Turkey under the Justice and Development administration, it seems that religion becomes or its imposed as an important element of the Turkish national identity. The education system works as the channel of promoting this change. So, the case of Turkey is that of a nation - state that has been under construction since it emerged from a successful war of independence, and any analysis of policies needs to pay careful attention to the dominant state ideology. The characteristics of all the parties that have held power since the Republic came into being. This analysis, goes on to examine and interpret their educational policies and their decision - making in this area in relation to their political ideologies, all this set against the general historical background. It is, in fact, the series of Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - AKP) governments which, since the party's first election victory in 2002, have implemented several reforms so as to change educational thinking in Turkey. Within this framework and especially after 2002, Islam and most specifically the Turkish political Islam plays an important and defining role in Turkish society. It is an agenda, consisting of market - oriented education, that includes transforming and privatising the public education system, developing policies on religious education in line with emerging notions of political Islam, promoting the growth of Islamic educational curricula, whether in Imam - Hatip schools or in higher education, and generally putting more emphasis upon Islam as an important constituent of the Turkish national identity. The book provides both historical context and state policy information. This scientific work is aiming at bringing out researchers' and lecturers' needs and expectation to learn about the characteristics of different policies used by Turkish governments in education. The study will enable civil society groups, researchers, university students and academics to identify problems and opportunities that the Turkish Government has been dealing with. Hence; it can be used both from researchers and policy makers, as well as in classwork. This book will be useful as the main or a recommended reading in courses like "Political Institutions in Turkey", "The History of Education in the Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey", "Themes in the History and Politics of Turkey", "The Tanzimat" and "The Emergence and Development of Turkish Nationalism""--