Capabilities-based gender equality analysis of educational policy-making and reform in Turkey

ABSTRACT

This research aims to scrutinise the latest education reform and education policies in Turkey from a capabilities-based gender equality perspective. The data draws on interviews with stakeholders and practitioners to understand how gender equality is conceptualised in policy-making and to what extent reforms have fostered gender equality in girls’ education. From a policy-making perspective, the data shows that reform has been successful in terms of a tangible, measurable outcome of an increase in enrolment rates. This can be attributed to a boost in the number of religious schools and the introduction of single-sex education featuring a limited conceptual understanding of gender equality, with a focus on closing the gender gap. However, from the practitioners’ perspective, little concern has been given to gender equality and constrained girls’ capabilities. The paper fleshes out the tensions between policy-makers and practitioners by highlighting the need for a comprehensive and inclusive understanding of gender equality in educational policy-making and developing a capabilities-based gender equality policy that is able to dismantle conservative and gendered structures and accommodate boys.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy-making
• educational reform
• Turkey
• capability approach
• gender equality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Firdevs Melis Cin http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6015-0447

Notes on contributors

Firdevs Melis Cin is a Lecturer at Lancaster University. Her research interests focus on gender justice, education, and development. Most of the work she has done focused on issues regarding women’s development through education.

Ecem Karlıdağ-Dennis is a researcher at University of Northampton, Institute for Social Innovation and Impact. Her research interests are critical theory, educational policymaking, and gender.

Zeynep Temiz got her MS and PhD degrees at Middle East Technical University (METU) at the Department of Elementary Education. She is teaching at Yüzüncü Yıl University in Van-Turkey. Her study focuses on preschool education, teacher education, environmental education, Narrative skills, and beginning teachers’ problems.

Notes

1 AKP is also another acronym used for the Justice and Development Party. AKP stands for Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi in the Turkish language. The current JDP government has been in power since 2002.

2 The female enrolment ratio for secondary education increased from 63.86% in 2011 to 94.36% in 2016; the reform was introduced in 2012.