Democratising Turkey through student-centred pedagogy: opportunities and pitfalls

Abstract

Global reform talk on pedagogy has been converging around student-centred pedagogy (SCP) in recent decades. One of the significant appeals of this pedagogical model is its democratisation potentials. This article seeks to empirically study SCP's role in democratising learning and promoting social democratisation by taking the case of Turkey, a country whose democracy has been defined as being in acute crisis. The data are drawn from interviews with teachers and school management at eight public primary schools in Ankara. The study is mainly concerned with the potential of SCP in promoting democratic learning in classrooms, and understanding how broader social, cultural and political contexts support or impede such democratisation efforts. The paper will explore if adherence to democratic learning is more than rhetoric, particularly when serious limitations to social and political democratisation continue to persist in Turkey under the regime of the AKP.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank all school principals, teachers and other key informants who took part in this study, and to Murat Altinyelken for his careful reading of the draft and valuable suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Hülya Kosar Altinyelken is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Child Development and Education Department of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the Netherlands. Her research engages with issues such as educational reforms, curriculum change, pedagogy and teachers. She is the co-editor of Global Education Policy and International Development: New Agendas, Issues and Policies, and Global Managerial Education Reforms and Teachers. She has published in journals such as International Journal of Educational Development, Journal of Education Policy, Comparative Education, and Research in Comparative and International Education.