Parenting and education: Navigating class, religiosity and secularity in Istanbul

Abstract

This article studies the educational choices that secular and religious professional and managerial middle-class parents in Istanbul make for their children. It explores the ways in which class intersects with religion in Turkey where, politics, culture, social, and even economic life are marked by a deep divide among the religious and the secular. Focusing on a particular segment of the middle classes, that with higher economic and social capital, the article brings to fore the ways in which religiosity and secularity structure the processes of transforming privileges into acquired rights in the form of educational qualifications and extracurricular skills. It explores the current sociological conjuncture that bereaves both groups, albeit in different ways, of their ability to fully mobilize their accumulated economic, social, and cultural capitals in reproducing their class position in their children. The article argues that exploring the parenting of education along the secular and the religious divide can unravel the foundational elements of the ongoing competition and conflict in Turkey and enables a deeper understanding of the current divide and the potential for a future reconciliation. The study relies on a qualitative study that entails interviews with thirty families and two focus groups.

Keywords:

• Education
• parenting
• cultural capital
• religion and secularism in Turkey
• middle-class

Notes

1 The sphere that contains these practices and choices, that is the family, continues to be an important sphere of production and reproduction of privilege and constraint as it “provides the social context where resources of different types, such as social standing and economic capital but also values, aspirations, skills, religion and languages, are passed on from parents to children” (Franceschelli & O’Brien, 2014, p. 1192).

2 Middle classes have considerable advantage in navigating the education scene and the differences between different types of schools (Ball et al., 1994) and they have more cultural and social capital to mobilize in understanding and navigating through the cultural assemblage (Apple, 2001, p. 415) they are operating in.

3 The houses, furnishings, clothes, pass time activities of our respondent families all testify to a comfortable and similar lifestyle. Both groups are well educated: All secular parents are university graduates. 33% of our interlocutors who considered themselves secular had post-graduate degrees (6 masters and 2 PhDs). The religious are all but 5 university graduates. 24% of them had postgraduate degrees (2 masters, and 4 PhDs). Only in two religious families both parents had only high school or secondary school degrees and a religious mother had a primary school degree. Those without college or post-graduate degree among religious parents correspond to 16% of our total of 26. All fathers were working, and 16 mothers were working at the time of the interviews but all except one had worked until they had a child. They had managerial, professional, or academic jobs or owned successful businesses.

4 All data regarding the number and enrollment of schools in this article are compiled from the 2021 National Education Statistics published annually by the Ministry of National Education (2021) unless otherwise noted.

5 Some of the private schools which were mostly established by missionaries dating back to the late Ottoman Empire (Evered, 2012; Fortna, 2002). These schools, like what we have below called Belmar, Kalamis or Royal, educate in English, Italian, French and German and are also popular especially among well-to-do secular families.

6 When religious educational institutions of the Ottoman Empire were closed and education was totally secularized in the early 1920s a few religious schools, Imam Hatips, with the aim of educating the imams and religious officials were opened. They remained dormant and very marginal until the 1950s. In 1951–1952 there were 7 junior and 7 senior high Imam Hatips. Their numbers have been slowly, yet steadily growing since. In 1998–1999 there were 604 of both and 1099 in 2011–2012 (Cakmak, 2009). The increase in their numbers (despite interruptions and decreases during secular backlashes) did not carry Imam Hatips to the mainstream and they remained a specialized choice for those seeking religious education.

7 In the 1950s six special public schools educating in English, which were later called Anatolian Schools, and a Science High School in Ankara in the 1960s were founded and their numbers in the 1970s and 1980s gradually and in the 2000s exponentially increased.

8 The private and special public school examinations were merged and centralized in 1997 (Rutz & Balkan, 2009).

9 See, https://www.dw.com/tr/erdoğan-imam-hatipli-olmak-dava-adamı-olmaktır/a-48314564, retrieved at July 18, 2022.

10 Religious education is one of three realms along with police force and military personnel education mandated by constitution to fully remain under public control.

11 Two key changes were (i) the extension of mandatory education period from 5 to 8 years in 1997, and (ii) the further extension of the mandatory education period from 8 to 12 years.

12 One of the authors have a child in secondary education in Istanbul. This allowed the author to reach out to some families using their personal network.

13 12 interviews with parents are not included into our analysis as these parents had kids but not at school age. They were key for adding perspective as to how concerns regarding schooling are being shaped at an early stage, yet they were not directly pertaining to the research design drawn for this research.

14 M refers to mother, F to father, S to secular and R to religious, and the number is the age of the respondent.

15 Piano and oud dichotomy appeared as simple and somewhat cliché marker indicating parents’ cultural and political leanings. Piano is associated with more secular and westernized instrument while oud, a cornerstone of Turkish music, is considered more traditional and appropriate for conservative lifestyle.

16 Robert College, one of Istanbul’s, and naturally Turkey’s, most prestigious private high schools charge as much as $17,750 annually for its 5-year long program as of 2022. See https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/robert-college-most-expensive-with-17-750-annual-fee-174365 retrieved at July 18, 2022. Total cost of such high-end education in Turkey could cost as much as a quarter million dollars per child for the 15-year long period.

17 They were even expunged from the national curricula timetable briefly in 2017.

18 Kemalism, which might appear very accessible to readers familiar with Turkey, refers to secular people in Turkey. Usually associated with main contours of secular lifestyle and Westernized outlook, it also describes groups that do not identify themselves religious as their first order of identity.

19 See, Fikri İktidarımızı Tesis Edemedik (We Haven’t Been Able to Establish our Intellectual Rule), retrieved at August 4, 2022. https://www.birgun.net/haber/erdogan-fikri-iktidarimizi-tesis-edemedik-319719.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Biray Kolluoğlu

Biray Kolluoğlu, Professor of Sociology, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Evren M. Dinçer

Evren M. Dinçer, Professor of Sociology, Abdullah Gül University, Kayseri, Turkey.