Citizenship Education in Turkey : From Militant-Secular to Islamic Nationalism

This book is a critical investigation of the curriculum change in citizenship education in Turkey from 1995 to 2012. Relying on interviews and policy documents, it draws on the conventions of critical discourse analysis and provides a comprehensive account of the ideological evolution of the citizenship education curriculum.

This book investigates the evolution of citizenship education curriculum in parallel with the ideological transition of the country in a crucial period in which political power switched from secular-militant to Islamic nationalism. It sheds light on the ways in which a combination of internal and external influences shaped the curriculum which include the power struggle between the two forms of nationalism and the role of the United Nations, the European Union and Council of Europe. In most countries, the national curriculum is modified when there is a change of government. In Turkey, the alignment of the national curriculum to the dominant ideology in power is to be expected. Therefore, the investigation offers more than a descriptive account of the transformation of citizenship education curriculum. Against the backdrop of the ideological transformation of the national education from 1995 to 2012, the book presents a nuanced and critical account of curriculum change in citizenship education.