Three evils of citizenship education in Turkey: ethno-religious nationalism, statism and neoliberalism

ABSTRACT

Relying on a theoretical frame developed in reference to an interdisciplinary research field, this article provides a critical analysis of Turkey’s citizenship education (CE) curriculum with a view to revealing discourses that inhibit the promotion of cosmopolitan values of human rights, democratic citizenship and diversity. The analysis demonstrates that a complementary set of ethno-religious, statist and neoliberal discourses undermines the cosmopolitan values. The inharmonious patchwork of these two sets of conflicting discourses raises the question of whether CE in Turkey really empowers students to support democracy. This question reveals the significance of developing a CE curriculum underpinned by a consistent set of socio-political values in Turkey and elsewhere.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizenship education
• social studies education
• national identity
• nationalism
• human rights
• cosmopolitan citizenship
• neoliberalism
• textbooks
• diversity
• Turkey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abdulkerim Sen

Abdulkerim Sen works as an assistant professor at Eskişehir Osmangazi University. After receiving his master’s degree from Florida State University in 2013, he finished his PhD in democratic citizenship education at UCL Institute of Education in 2017. His research interest is focused on the interplay between dominant ideologies and citizenship/human rights education. He has recently co-authored a book with Professor Hugh Starkey, which is entitled ‘Citizenship Education in Turkey: From Militant-Secular to Islamic Nationalism’

Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1869-312X

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Abdulkerim_Sen

Academia: https://ogu.academia.edu/AbdulkerimSen

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