The nationalised and gendered citizen in a global world – examples from textbooks, policy and steering documents in Turkey and Sweden

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the construction of the gendered and nationalised citizen in education in Turkey and Sweden. We draw on a narrative approach identifying narratives linked to educational discourses. Our empirical data consist of textbooks (in the later years of mandatory schooling), steering documents and interviews. In both our cases, we encounter continuities in these narratives; the citizen is defined with ethno-cultural references along with civic ones, and differentiated according to gender. In the Turkish case, a meta-narrative is constructed around the narratives of enemy and defence related to masculinity, and the feminine as the object of protection. The gender regime is an important part of the processes of normalisation of nationalism. In Sweden, nationalism is formulated around the ‘Swedish miracle’, a social-welfare state, among the best democracies, and with a story of ‘gender success’. In both cases, we also found new narratives in line with Europeanisation processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen
• gender
• nationalism
• narrative approach
• education policy
• textbooks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The project was financed by the Swedish Research Council (2011–2014).

2. Both countries thus have longstanding migration exchanges, especially through an ongoing migration from Turkey to Sweden, but also visa versa. In this context, conceptions of gender and gender issues have often been discussed (e.g. Carlson 2006; Engelbrektsson 1978).

3. The social sciences textbooks involve history, geography and general knowledge. Since 1997 it has been a course that starts in grade 4 and ends in grade 7.

4. Keyman and Kancı (2011) build upon a thesis and projects studying Turkish textbooks and curricula from 1928 onwards.

5. These interviews have not been used for many direct quotes in this article, but the interview data have been included as a kind of interpretative framework in our analysis of textbooks and documents.

6. For change in education in Sweden, see Rabo (2007).

7. İlköğretim ve Eğitim Kanunu, law number 222.

8. Milli Eğitim Temel Kanunu, law number 1739.

9. MONE Legislation; MEB refers to Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı, Ministry of National Education.

10. As regards Sweden and fundamental values, the Curriculum 2011 states that the national school system is based on democratic foundations as well as the much-debated school values linked to ‘Christian tradition and Western humanism’ (Gruber and Rabo 2014).

11. Board of Education; TTKB refers to Talim Terbiye Kurulu Başkanlığı.

12. Here ‘meta-narrative’ refers to a grand narrative that encompasses various narratives within it.

13. See Ersanlı-Behar (1992) for a detailed historical and conceptual analysis of the thesis. See Copeaux (1998) for an analysis of the influence of the Turkish History Thesis in lycee (upper grades of secondary school) history textbooks between 1931 and 1993.

14. These narratives are the narrative about neutrality, the narrative about the prosperity of the welfare country, the narrative about the role model country of democracy, the narrative about the stranger and the narrative about the world's most gender equal country. Some of these narratives also contain sub-narratives.