Skip to main content

2018 Conference: Education in Turkey

Keyman conference taking place

Youth and education are central to political contestations in today’s Turkey. The 2018 Keyman Conference examined the state of ongoing transformation and political contentions in education in Turkey. Among issues generating concern among stakeholders are:

Thursday, 18 October

10:00-10:30 Welcome

Annelise Riles, Executive Director, Buffett Institute for Global Studies

Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Keyman Program, Northwestern University

Leyla Neyzi, Sabancı University, 2017-2018 Keyman Visiting Professor

10:30–12:00 PANEL I: Education as a Field of Political Contestation

Chair:  Leyla Neyzi, Sabancı University

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:  A critique of contemporary education policy scene in Turkey

Batuhan Aydagül, Education Reform Initiative

Children’s Literature and the Struggle Over Cultural Literacy

Elizabeth Nolte, University of Warwick

Rethinking State and Civil Society: Two Educational Policies During the Justice and Development Party Era

Özlem Tuncel, Boğaziçi University

1:30–3:00 PANEL II: Religious Education: Ideology and Institutions

Chair: Sultan Tepe, University of Illinois, Chicago 

The history of compulsory religion and moral courses in Turkey

Sumeyra Aydemir, University of California, San Diego

Raising a Religious Generation as a Primary Target: Quran Kindergartens in Turkey

Ece Cihan Ertem, Lund University

Informal Education In The Post-Gulenist Turkey: Continuities And Ruptures

Aydin Özipek, Northwestern University

3:30–5:00 PANEL III: Cultural and Political Imaginaries of Education

Chair: Danny Postel, Northwestern University

Miracles on the Way to School: Narratives of Education Across Turkish Cinema

Zain Jamshaid, University of Chicago

Youth perceptions of human rights in Turkey

Zinaida Besirevic, University of California,  Berkeley

Affective pedagogies in a polarized society

Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Northwestern University 

Friday, 19 October

10:00–12:00 PANEL IV: Social Class and Reproduction

Chair: Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Northwestern University

Social class, institutional habitus and high school choices in Turkey

Çetin Çelik, Koç University

(Unguided) Parental Involvement in School: The strategy of the lower class deprived of appropriate capitals in the education field

Didem Sağlam, Boğaziçi University

School to work or school to home? An analysis of women's vocational education in Turkey as a path to employment

Ayşe Alnıaçık, University of Pittsburg; Fatoş Gökşen, Koç University; Deniz Yükseker, İstanbul Aydın University

Appropriation of Cultural Capital as a Painful Process

Berkant Çağlar, Koç University

1:00–2:30 PANEL V: Transforming Public Schools

Chair: Deniz Duruiz, Northwestern University

Transforming a Public School Through Parental Resources: A New Middle-Class Strategy in Schooling

Tuğçe Özdemir, Koç University

From Selective Enrollment to Neighborhood Schools: Parental Responses to New Public-School Placement Policy

Esma Özel, University of Chicago

Technological Interventions in Education Reforms: the Case of FATIH Project

Koray Özdil, Sabancı University

3:00–4:30 PANEL VI: Alternative Education Networks and Pedagogies

Chair: Oya Topçuoğlu, Northwestern University

Kurdish Youth: Language, Schooling, and Alternative Pedagogies

Leyla Neyzi, Sabancı University 

Alternative Education Networks: The case of People’s Houses Summer School in Okmeydanı

Ezgi Murat, Boğaziçi University

Society of Volunteers

Mehmet Alper Senturk, Toplum Gönüllüleri Vakfı