Turkey

The Erdogan Revolution in the Turkish Curriculum Textbooks
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made significant changes to Turkey’s state-approved school textbooks since taking power in 2003. This report is the fourth undertaken by IMPACT-se into the Turkish curriculum. We have identified a marked deterioration in Turkish textbooks since our last review in 2016, in regards to meeting UNESCO defined standards of peace and tolerance. On the contrary, textbooks have been weaponized in Erdogan’s attempts to Islamize Turkish society and to hark back to a nostalgic age of Turkish domination. The Islamization of the curriculum is a direct attempt to shape future generations to fit in with his grand narrative of an Islamic/pan-Turkish revival. March 2021 Report  Exec Summary

Two Languages One Country: Turkey’s Elective Kurdish Curriculum
By Eldad J. Pardo, IMPACT-se — April 2019
The Kurdish textbooks appear at first glance to be simple and straightforward, no more than very little elective training in a minority population’s mother tongue. They are not. Both implicitly and explicitly the books include much material that strengthens conscious Kurdish identity . . . a conversation about this curriculum is worthwhile because the question of Kurdish education in Turkey remains unanswered.
Report   Executive Summary

NEIGHBORS AND RIVALS:
China in Turkey’s Educational System
IMPACT-se  Report  February 2017

In July 2015, protesters throughout Turkey burned China’s flag, along with effigies of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong. On the same day, a group of Turkish Ultra-nationalists and Islamists gathered in central Istanbul to protest the alleged restrictions on Uyghur religious freedom in China.

Report  (pdf 1.4 mb)