Neoliberal and nationalist discourses in Turkish elementary mathematics education

Abstract

Within the last three decades, critical educators have highlighted that all components of education are under great pressure from neoliberal ideologies. These educators underline the close relation between neoliberal projects in education and inequality in educational opportunities and outcomes. Turkey is no exception to this trend. The view that education is simply another market commodity has become normalized in policy and public discourses, and business discourse that relies on only profit-making has a growing place in curriculum and newly defined education goals. Emphasizing that mathematics education is one of the main targets of this neoliberal attack, this paper focuses on how neoliberal and neo-conservative tendencies have affected mathematics education in Turkey. These effects are examined through revealing profit-driven business discourse and nationalist discourse in elementary mathematics education texts. Bourdieu’s cultural capital is instrumentalized to clarify neoliberal policies’ impacts on the reproduction of social and educational inequalities. The discourse analyses of elementary mathematics curriculum, textbooks, workbooks, and teacher’s guide books imply that elementary mathematics discourse (a) orients students to use their mathematical abilities and skills for the benefit of private corporations instead of public welfare and (b) fosters nationalism via ignoring ethnic minority and non-Muslim groups living in Turkey.