Turkish Education System Research Articles

English

The purpose of this study is to analyze multicultural education and evaluate the Turkish education system regarding the acceptance of diversity. In this era, cultural diversity and identities are given equal importance in the world. Multiculturalism gives the opportunity for each citizen to secure life styles with equal rights, grow in a world of cultural heritage and raise children in the same world without being discriminated. Multicultural education advocates that everyone should have the equal educational opportunities on the basis of gender, social class, race, ethnicity and cultural variety. As a result, it has a purpose of ensuring equal opportunities, solving problems arising from cultural conflicts, supporting students to develop empathy, introducing each other’s cultures and increasing academic success. Diversity is not yet promoted in Turkish Education system and it is one area that is lacking in the system. It is also uncertain the benefits gained by living together in the community. As the schools are responsible for shaping the future of students, it is very important for teachers to consider diversity of culture and language to enhance their academic performanace. Key words: Multiculturalism, multicultural education, identity, diversity.

The Views of Preservice Teachers on the Comparison of the Turkish Education System and the Inter-grade Transition Systems of Some Countries

The Views of Preservice Teachers on the Comparison of the Turkish Education System and the Inter-grade Transition Systems of Some Countries

School Choice of Middle-Class Parents and Students in the Context of Neoliberal Policies

The purpose of the present study was to examine the reasons of school choices of middle-class families and their children within the context of the neoliberal education policies in Turkish education system. The study adopts a qualitative descriptive research approach. The data were collected via semi-structured interviews. The first study group consisted of 22 parents (13 public and 9 private schools). The second study group consisted of 30 students (16 public and 14 private school students) who were middle class, had high enough exit-exam score to be able to choose science high schools in Gaziantep province in the academic year of 2016-2017. The data were analyzed using the descriptive and content analysis techniques. The findings indicated that academic, economic, environmental, personal, social and cultural, religious, politic factors and physical conditions affected middle class parents and students school choices. The multi-factorial features demonstrate that middle-school parents and students are rather cautious and thorough in school selection. An important inference from the findings is that middle-class tends to see education as a re-generational tool serving to hold on to their social status and existence.

A Qualitative Case Study of Multicultural Education in Turkey: Definitions of Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education

The Republic of Turkey became more diverse than ever in its history. Multiculturalism and multicultural education, as part of Turkey’s globalization efforts, may be the most appropriate approach for the Turkish educational system to form a synthesis of cultures and to help diverse groups build an interactive dialog with others regardless of local, national, transnational or international status. This qualitative case study aimed to examine Turkish teachers’ and teacher candidates’ views on and perceptions of multiculturalism and multicultural education in the Turkish context. For this study, the researcher gathered data and investigated the perceptions and results of a stand-alone graduate course referred to as MULT-500 Multicultural Education and its effects on teachers’ and teacher candidates’ thoughts, beliefs, understandings, and perceptions. This course is offered at an institution located in the Marmara Region. When referring to this university, the pseudonym Alpha University was used. The data were collected from semi-structured interviews, written documents, focus group interview, classroom observation and fieldnotes. According to the findings, all study participants had an idea of what multiculturalism and multicultural education were before the course. During the course, they improved upon and enhanced their understandings and thoughts; however, they still need to extend their perspectives so as to more fully understand what those concepts mean.

Supervisor Selection, Assignment and Training Processes in the Turkish Education System

Supervisor Selection, Assignment and Training Processes in the Turkish Education System

The Inclusion of Social Issues in the Curricula Adopted at the Elementary Education Level in Turkey

<p style="text-align:justify">In Turkey, as in all countries of the world, education is regarded as the sole means of modernization, progress, civilization, productivity, and sustainability of all these things. The aim of the Turkish education system is to raise students with the national, moral and cultural values of the Turkish nation, to educate them as citizens of a social law state, and solve the existing or potential problems that may arise in the future. The most important document that shows how this aim will be achieved in the country is the curriculum. The purpose of this study is to reveal the frequency of the social issues included in the current curriculum at the elementary education level. Within the scope of the study, social issues presented by sociologists were established through e-Delphi panels, coded under seven titles by researchers, those who were thought to bring solutions to these problems were counted by descriptive analysis method in the specific aims, themes and achievements of the curriculum used at elementary level. Results show that curriculum adopted at the elementary education level include mostly issues related to individual life and individualization, socialization, democratic life and democratization while economic issues, and issues related to family, environment and urbanization are emphasized less. These findings are discussed with other research results.</p>

The Irish Education System and Implications for the Turkish Education System

The purpose of the current study is to make a detailed introduction to the Irish education system and to come up with some implications latter through comparing it with the Turkish education system. Accordingly, the literature was reviewed. A general introduction was made to Ireland and its education system was examined considering its goals, structure and process dimensions. Similar and different aspects of the Irish and Turkish education system were discussed, and various suggestions were developed. The Irish and Turkish education systems have many similarities in terms of having a centralized structure, students’ obligation to take a general exam at the end of secondary education, financing of schools mostly by public resources, dominance of external inspection at schools and control of higher education by higher education councils such as YÖK and HEA. On the other hand, these two systems differ from each other in terms of administrative structure of schools, time of compulsory education, secular structure of education, rights to send children to whichever school they wish and to educate children at home, financial resources allocated for education, appointment of school principals and participation of stakeholders in administration. As a result of the comparison of these two education systems, it can be said that more opportunities should be provided for stakeholders to take part in administrative processes, psychologists should be included in inspection units, more emphasis should be put on self-assessment and more guidance and counseling should be offered to students so that the education system in Turkey can develop more.

Islamic Populism and Creating Desirable Citizens in Erdogan’s New Turkey

Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments have managed to remove Kemalism only to replace it with an Islamist nation-building and social-engineering project that is as, if not more, authoritarian, conservative, and regressive than the Kemalist one. The Turkish education system has been transformed into a political tool to manipulate youth and mold them into cadres of a peculiar Islamist ideology supported by the Recep Tayyip Erdogan regime. This essay discusses four sets of educational tools that have been redesigned to enable Erdogan and his entourage to shape the worldview of younger generations of Turkish citizens.

Progress and Pitfalls in Women’s Education in Turkey (1839-2017)

Girls’ education and women’s enlightenment have been key elements of the Kemalist Republic (1923), which claimed to face towards the highest level of civilization and treated women as the symbols of a modernized secular Turkish nation-state and society. However, the official ideological and cultural principles of the education system in Turkey underwent dramatic transformations. Education policies under the AKP rule have been shaped by a combination of neoliberalism, conservatism and Islamism. Consequently, the education system has changed rapidly especially during the last six years. Since early 2012, Turkish education system suffered radical changes with tremendous implications for women’s education in particular and gender equality in general.
 In this article, after a general review and commentary about the development of women's education during the different stages of the Republic, we will concentrate on the process of Islamification of education in recent Turkey especially concerning consequences for girls and women. This brings along the need for a closer look on the clergic, so called Imam Hatip Schools in which apart from the conventional High School Curriculum Islamic teachings is provided to students.

Metaphorical perceptions of prospective EFL teachers related to Turkish education system

This study aims to determine prospective teachers’ perceptions on the basic concepts of the education system in terms of its inputs, processes and outputs through metaphors. Phenomenological analysis was used. The participants were senior students from Gaziantep University, English Language Teaching (ELT) department and pedagogic formation program students from the English Language and Literature (ELL) department. The data were collected by asking about metaphorical perceptions related to the concepts of student, parent, school, school principal, curriculum, teaching materials, principles and methods of teaching, assessment and evaluation, ethics, class management, success and graduate students. Content analysis was employed for analysis. Teacher candidates produced 528 valid metaphors related to 13 concepts of education system. Out of these, 269 metaphors were positive, 109 were negative and 150 were related to basic features of education system. While 34 prospective teachers from ELL department produced 338 metaphors, 18 prospective teachers from ELT department produced 190 metaphors. The perceptions of teacher candidates in both groups were similar in terms of teacher, student, parent, school principal, teaching materials, ethics, and success. While ELL department students identified the concepts of school and graduate more positively, ELT department students described curriculum and classroom management more positively.

The Possible Effects of 4th Industrial Revolution on Turkish Educational System

The Possible Effects of 4th Industrial Revolution on Turkish Educational System

Human Resource Management Practices in Turkish Education System (Denizli Case)

<p style="text-align:justify">Human Resource Management (HRM) includes recruitment, training, development, motivation and evaluation of the staff who will achieve the goals of the organization and perform the necessary activities to be successful. The success of the organization depends on the effective use and management of human resources. Considering that The Ministry of Turkish National Education has the most crowded personnel and the potential of leading the future human resources, the HRM strategies of this organization becomes significant. In this study, it is aimed to investigate to the human resources management practices of the Ministry of Turkish National Education from the perspectives of teachers who are also the human resources of the system. In this research, holistic-multiple case study design was employed and the open-ended interview form which includes nine questions considering the functions of the HRM was utilized as the data collection tool. Research results showed that teachers know the duties and responsibilities which are declared in their job definition but they do not consider some of the significant professional efficiencies such as planning, assessment and evaluation. Moreover, the ministry does not make long-term plans in order to determine the required human resources, and also the functionality and subjectivity of the system is under discussion in terms of selection and appointment. What's more, the desired aims cannot be reached in terms of professional development. Teachers have the anxiety of performance evaluation based on accountability, and they emphasize fair and subjectivity in terms of payment, rewarding and discipline.</p>

Economic Reasoning and Its Educational Forms in Turkish Education System

The neoliberal trends which have been become dominant with the 1980s caused the reconstruction of all social areas, especially economy. The World Bank who is the global actor of the neoliberal policies is the object of this reconstruction processes in especially east societies. The economic reasoning is the main subject of this processes has been tried to be hegemonic in the educational fields too. In this paper, it is tried to indicate the educational forms of economic reasoning by examining the Turkish education system after 1980's. The economic reasoning is a thinking form which aims to price everything. Its main aim is to make fenomens suited for the pricing. In the other words, the main aim of economic reasoning is to make everything subject of market. Because material things' weights, lengths and volumes are measurable, it is easy to make them suited for pricing. But when someone try to do the same thing for educational institutions and educational labor, it is not easy. So in this study, we tried to show how the economic reasoning deal with this problem. In other words, we tried to find out how pricing and marketization processes have been realized by examining of curriculum, private schools, autonomy of schools' budgets, tuition fees, educational quality and performance evaluation.

Language and Literature Education in Azerbaijan and Turkey

Turkish world geography is a vast geography. In its broadest sense, it expands from Balkans in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east; from the Arctic Ocean in the North to Tibet in the South. The subject of our study is Azerbaijan which is one of the independent states in this geography. In the study, similarities and differences of Turkish and Azerbaijan education system, language-literature education, curriculum, course books were analysed. Azerbaijan was chosen for the study since it is akin to Turkey in the sense of language and geography and it also takes the head in Turkish world in education and culture. In the collection of data, document review method was used and in the light of information acquired, positive aspects of both countries were used.

Is the Equality in Education a Tenet

Education starts informally at home and its definition can change person to person. While Tyler defines education as a period of changing one’s behavior pattern, Erturk’s explanation is that education is a period of creating intentional desired change in one’s behavior by way of own living and Fidan also describes education as a period of managing people according to specified goals (4). According to today’s education system, after 60th month of birth, every child has to start the formal education. Turkish Education System has been being changed so frequent and irregularly. Terminally, private teaching institutions, called dershane , are forced to close down by heavy sanction. Even worse, these institutions are allowed to transform to Private Fundamental High Schools just by changing their signboard. The aim of this study is to go around National Education Ministry’s Private Fundamental School judgment that is far from equality in education and from general targets of Turkish National Education System and constituted in accordance with political profits. Reflections of instability of deformed education system by six national education minister changes in fourteen years are observed. The judgment’s potential damages to our education system and to the next generations are also remarked. In this study, nine Private Fundamental High School teachers from four different cities were interviewed face to face with question-answer technique about current and potential problems of these schools. The inequality of financial support of National Education Ministry to the Private Fundamental High School students’ topic is studied in the light of a 12-question survey applied to 126 teachers and directors and thesis, article, book and explanations of National Education Ministry. Data is analyzed by SPSS 22 program. Percentage distribution of survey participant teachers is %5,6 preschool teacher, %54,8 primary school teacher (1-4), %15,9 branch teacher (5-8), %23.8 branch teacher (9-12). Article visualizations:

Erdoganism and Islamist Use of Education in Turkey

This essay argues that sixteen years after coming to power, successive AKP governments have managed to remove Kemalism and replace it with their Islamist nation-building and social engineering project that is as much, if not more, authoritarian, conservative, and regressive than their Kemalist predecessors. The Turkish education system, together with its various private and public institutions, have been transformed into a political tool to manipulate youth and mold them into a peculiar Islamist ideology supported by the Erdoganist regime in Turkey. Four institutions under the AKP government’s control have primarily been utilized to manipulate the Turkish youth and shape their worldview. These are the national education curriculum, religious IHS, Quran courses, and Islamic foundations. These institutions have gradually been redesigned by the AKP to enable Erdogan and his entourage to shape and mold the worldview of younger generations of Turkish citizens. This worldview is based on the heavily anti-Western Turkish Islamism. This Islamization trend can be observed in the intensification of religio-nationalism with neo-Ottomanistic and Islamists approaches in religious and secular schools as well.

Evaluation of Quality Policies on Education in Turkish Education System

It's aimed to evaluate the quality policies for education in Turkish National Educational System according to the opinions of the directors of departments for policies who are in charge at Ministry of National Educational and the projection of these policies on quality of education in this study. The study is designed as a qualitative research model and interview technique which is one of a technique of phenomenology model. Study group of this research which has used purposive sampling is consisted from all of the directors of educational polity departments who are in charge of General Directories within the Ministry of National Education. Data were analysed by content analysis in Nvivo 10 packet programme. It's found that the themes and codes that were revealed in the research show parallelism with system approach. It's come through that there are progresses both capacities of physical and quantitative aspects as decreasing the kind of schools, lowering the classrooms sizes and meeting the schools with FATIH project according to the research. Despite of these founding it's also determined that quality problems in education are still keeping on. It's determined that there are many things to do especially performing theoretical quality policies; progressing of capacities of administration, teachers and programmes, applying administrative processes; proceeding on learning capacity of the students; providing of democratisation and participation and providing equality in opportunities. In addition, it has been determined that the lack of integrity in communication and coordination during the polity setting and implementation process negatively influences the system. It has been reached that the directors of polity departments deal with organizational change in the context of shaping and doing with legislation and regulations. It's suggested that hierarchical centralized structuring and distance that caused by high power have caused obstacle for transparency and participation; continuous changing and intervention abraded the system and reduced the quality of education.

Physical Education and Sports in the Reports of Foreigner Education Experts Coming to Turkey in the Period of Republic (1923-1960)

Different applications have been initiated for the restructuring of the Turkish education System, with the proclamation of the Republic and 123 training experts have been invited to Turkey between the years 1923-1960 in this regard. 19 people have been requested to prepare the report in relation with their fields of specialization among the foreign education experts arriving in Turkey between these dates; however, these experts have produced reports that include the whole of the Turkish education system. This situation has also led to superficial assessment of some issues that need to be addressed specially. The physical education and sports field, which is one of these areas, is handled very superficially in the expert reports, even they have seen to be affected from the reports carried out before themselves and their reports are in the situational dimension rather than functionality. As there is no adequate development in the field of physical education and sports within the reformed education system, the Republic of Turkey has taken measures to bring foreign physical education and sports experts to Turkey through government agencies such as Turkey Training Community Alliance (TTCA), Turkish Sports Authority, the General Directorate of Physical Education and to develop this field in modern sense.

CHALLENGES OF A CONTENT-BASED SYLLABUS IN A FRESHMAN ENGLISH CONTEXT IN TURKEY

The selection of a particular syllabus design; what to teach and in which order, would inadvertently reflect the beliefs and values on ‘language’ and ‘language learning’ as the types of syllabus are also manifestations of how the nature of language and language learning viewed. While most Freshman English Programs seem to reflect the common practices of ‘compartmentalized’ nature of the Turkish education system where students are divided into science and social majors and receive ESP or EAP, a pioneering Freshman English Program at Istanbul Sehir University has been integrating literary texts; short stories and novels in an attempt to transform the idea of ‘language as a rule-based system’ into ‘language as a socio-semantic system’. This paper will present a brief overview of the initial stage of this pioneering thematic content based syllabus put in action in 2015-2016 academic year sharing the underlying reasons behind the course design and the challenges faced in the attempts of aiming to build on cultural competence, language and critical thinking skills with a communicative approach helping students to respond to the demands of a tertiary education at their best abilities.

The Problems Experienced in the Integration Process of Syrian Students into the Turkish Education System

This study aimed to determine the problems experienced at schools in the integration process of Syrian students into the Turkish Education System according to 66 school principals from 10 different cities of Turkey. The study was designed with mixed research methodology. According to the research results, there are some problems about the physical condition of schools, the dialogue between Turkish and Syrian students, Syrian students' behaviors at school, the teaching methods of the teachers, administrative processes at school, parent-teacher association, teachers' communication with Syrian students and the supply of guidance services.