A Retrospective and Critical View of Turkish Citizenship Education
An ideological intent has long been attributed to citizenship and citizenship education in Turkey (Çayır & Gürkaynak, 2007; Çayır, 2011; Koçal, 2012). Therefore, related concepts should be evaluated in their historical and cultural context in order to
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An ideological intent has long been attributed to citizenship and citizenship education in Turkey (Çayır & Gürkaynak, 2007; Çayır, 2011; Koçal, 2012). Therefore, related concepts should be evaluated in their historical and cultural context in order to understand Turkish citizenship and citizenship education: In the ancient tradition of Turkey, the notion of Homeland had an identity associated with sacred connotations. Traditionally, the notion of the state such as the eternal state [in Turkish, devlet-i ebed-müddet] dominated individual and collective consciousness. In the view of the state regarding society, the understanding “keep society alive to make the state live” was adopted as a principle; in other words, there existed a spiritual-oral contract between the state and society for mutual preservation. Therefore, we are involved in the sacred whenever speaking about the state. In addition, the sacred attributions to these concepts of the state still persist in Turkey and citizenship-belonging remains a controversial issue nowadays. However, perceptions have changed over time. When discussing today’s understandings of citizenship, the historical dimension of the existing situation and its undeniable relationship with other elements should be taken into consideration. The Turkish Republic is a nation-state which is the remnant of Ottoman Empire; therefore the situation should be analyzed starting from the Ottoman period until today. Thus, to discuss the level at which citizenship education is realized in Turkey poses distinctive problems that raise the following questions: • How did the Ottoman Empire constitute the ‘me-homeland-state’ relationship? • What importance did the Turkish Republic give to the intellectual historicity of the state-individual-society sectors?
E. Aslan, M. Hermansen (eds.), Islam and Citizenship Education, Wiener Beiträge zur Islamforschung, DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-08603-9_15, © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2015
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Selahattin Turan
• Could definitions of citizenship be articulated by successive constitutions of the Turkish Republic so as to create inclusive language for all sections of society? • Is citizenship in Turkey based on the homeland phenomenon or the state phenomenon? • At what level does the relationship of post-republic state structuring in Turkey with various social sectors proceed? • Are there historical circumstances that allow the building of sympathetic relationships between individuals that prioritize the references of religion and the state? • What are the conditions and forms of the presence of the state, nation and religious community in the minds of Muslims who constitute the majority in Turkey? • Is the privilege of benefitting from the services and opportunities administered or controlled by the state applied equally to all the segments of society? • How do teachers providing citizenship education construct the concept of citizenship in their own intellectual world?
Turkish Citizenship in Historical and Legal Context In order to assess the areas of tension re
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