A Language of Freedom and Teacher’s Authority : Case Comparisons from Turkey and the United States

This collection combines the perspectives of Turkish and U.S. teacher educators regarding autonomy in the teacher’s profession. With methodologically diverse research approaches, it depicts changing conditions in Turkey and in the U.S. from the unique perspective of professional communities creating an international network of study and writing.

A Language of Freedom and Teacher’s Authority: Case Comparisons from Turkey and the United States explores dimensions of authority that are deeply embedded in the profession of teaching. It examines critical dimensions of the foundations of Turkish and U.S. public education, both of which are under new pressures due to changes in the relationship between public schooling and current reforms in education. The contributors reflect on varied dimensions of authority, of which ideals are shifting under political and economic pressures. In both Turkey and the U.S, public education reflects the early influence of secular equalitarianism, revolutionary democratic developments, and an Enlightenment-based sense of the human right to education. Against this, we see the opposing dialectic where state control and curricular censorship and constriction appear too often.