Poster #38 - Change and Continuity: Military-Civilian Relations and Coups in Turkey's Citizenship and Social Studies Textbooks (1950–2012)

• In Event: 77.059 - MTCC Tuesday Poster Session 18
  In Poster Session: 77.059-6 - International and Domestic Politics of Education

Abstract

The Turkish military has acted as a political actor beyond the constitutional control of civilian institutions. It has attempted to legitimize its anti-democratic status and behaviors by using public discourse production means like education. This paper illustrates how discourses legitimizing the military’s anti-democratic status and behaviors were resonated in education by providing a critical discourse analysis of 16 citizenship and social studies textbooks used from 1950 to 2012. Findings revealed that the textbooks included discourses legitimizing and glorifying the military’s autonomy and interventions that harmed the functioning of democratic order. After the recognition of Turkey as a candidate for European Union membership in 1999, the militarist discourses began to dissipate and to a great extent disappeared in the 2010s.

Author

• Abdulkerim Sen, Amasya University