Who are we? and Who are they? The construction of Turkish national identity in textbooks within the context of the Turkish War of Independence

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse the construction of Turkish national identity as ‘we’ and ‘they’ in textbooks taught in the primary schools during the first years of the Republic of Turkey and the beginning of the 2000s in the context of narration of the Turkish War of Independence. The main material of the study consists of history and social studies textbooks. In this scope, four primary school history textbooks taught in the first years of the Republic of Turkey and four social studies textbooks taught at the primary school level at the beginning of the 2000s were selected. In selection of these textbooks care was taken to ensure that they were compliant with the curriculum in force at the time and that they were approved by the authorities responsible for education. Document analysis method was employed to gather subject data from the textbooks in question. The data gathered by this method were analysed using content analysis technique. The result of the analysis identified important and striking differences in the construction of Turkish national identity as ‘we’ and ‘they’ in the context of the Turkish War of Independence in textbooks from the two time periods.