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Quality & Quantity

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17.10.2017

Modernization, nationalization, globalization: Turkish higher education and academics with a perspective on the problem of identity

verfasst von: Belkıs Ayhan Tarhan, Meltem Onurkan Samani, Hasan Samani

Erschienen in: Quality & Quantity | Sonderheft 1/2018

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Abstract

This study explores the socio-historical conditions of higher education institutions and the production of academic knowledge in Turkey, with a specific interest on the problem of identity. First, a brief inquiry into the past is attempted in the way of analysing how such problem manifests itself throughout the transformations of higher education institutions during modernization and nationalization processes. Then, a more specific attention is directed towards the post-1980 period when higher education is to adapt itself in accordance with the recent globalizing tendencies. The study argues that these tendencies can be understood in terms of an international division of academic labour which also speaks for an internal division in Turkey. It is also claimed that the problem of identity plays a crucial role in all these processes where such dualities as West–East, global/universal-local, and material-cultural operate in distinctive ways.

Vorheriger Artikel Ensuring quality physical education (PE) instruction: the role of department heads

Nächster Artikel The attitudes of education, tourism and health sector managers in Northern Cyprus towards Education on Health Tourism

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It would certainly be easier if one ignores the Ottoman past and concentrates solely on the history of the Turkish Republic. This would mean, on the other hand, to disregard the continuities and discontinuities in the broader process of modernization and what it entails for the conditions of the Turkish academia and academics. Hatipoğlu (2000) and Timur (2000) gives a comprehensive and detailed discussion on the history of Turkish higher education relating not only to the Ottoman past but also to the earlier periods. An analysis on the basis of such history would require another study questioning the term, higher education, but it is possible to be confined with the argument here that if what is considered higher education is to be understood in the ‘modern’ sense, it would be very reasonable to start with the modernization attempts that took place in the Ottoman period.

Berkes (1978) states that among these institutions of higher education, the School of Medicine had a specific significance for the Sultan and that it played an essential role both in generating a new understanding of medicine and in the process of modernization. The students and graduates of this School were among the prominent ‘radicals’ in search of a new and more rational order (Hatipoğlu 2000).

Gökalp (1876–1924) was also the founder of the first sociology department in Turkey in 1917 within the body of a higher education institution, Darülfûnun (founded officially in 1840 but started education in 1900), which was transformed to Istanbul University in 1933. His ideas were very much influenced by Durkheim’s work especially for his emphasis on social solidarity and integrity for a society in the process of social transformation.

A similarly conservative understanding can be found in the Western literature concerning the certain works on modern civilization and technology where technology is considered to be a mere collection of machines and techniques that should be kept separate from what is thought of as ‘cultural’ and authentic (Tarhan 1996).

So, it can be claimed that starting from these years, the western/civilized has not signified solely the European but more and more the ‘American’ as well.

For a more comprehensive analysis of the issue, see Karpat (1976).

For this aim, a central administrative unit, State Planning Organization, was founded in September, 1960.

Until 1984, there were 27 state universities; between 1984 and 2001 number of the universities increased to 77 with the 50 new universities almost half of which are private/foundational (YÖK [Higher Education Council] 2003, Türk Yüksek Öğretiminin Bugünkü Durumu, 22–25). Currently, there are 154 universities of which 52 are private/foundational (Source: http://www.yok.gov.tr/content/view/532). It would be important to note here that the majority of these private universities are located rather in Istanbul, the biggest metropolitan centre, where the business and industry are most intensified in the country.

It would be important to note here that in a few of these state universities, instruction is in a foreign language.

One may observe that this expression is used by many Turkish academics in their CVs rather than, for instance, ‘internationally refereed publications’.

For a discussion on identity as a cultural and historical process, Hall (1996).

This emphasis on ‘traits’ comes from Appadurai (1999, p. 232) where he separates “process geographies” from “trait geographies” and argues that “Much traditional thinking about ‘areas’ has been driven by conceptions of geographical, civilizational and cultural coherence which rely on some sort of trait list of values, of languages, of material practices, of ecological adaptations, of marriage patterns and the like. However sophisticated these approaches, they tend to see ‘areas’ as relatively immobile aggregates of traits, with more or less durable historical boundaries and with a unity composed of more or less durable properties.”

For the relationships among experience, narration of experience and the question of identity, Sarup (1996).

One should note here that although they claim to represent the non-western, in terms of their life-styles, these academics are generally among the most ‘western’/westernized middle-class people in Turkey.

Ahmad, F.: The Making of Modern Turkey. Routledge, London and New York (1993)

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Appadurai, A.: Globalization and the Research Imagination. Int. Soc. Sci. J. 160, 229–238 (1999). doi:10.1111/1468-2451.00191 CrossRef

Berkes, N.: Türkiye’de Çağdaşlaşma [Modernization in Turkey]. Doğu-Batı Yayınları, İstanbul (1978)

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Gökalp, Z.: Türkçülüğün Esasları [Fundamentals of Turkism]. Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, Ankara (1990) [1923]

Hall, S.: Introduction: who needs identity. In: Hall, S., du Gay, P. (eds.) Questions of Cultural Identity, pp. 1–17. Sage, London (1996)

Hatipoğlu, T.: Türkiye Üniversite Tarihi [History of University in Turkey]. Selvi Yayınları, Hatipoğlu (2000)

Karpat, K.: The Gecekondu: Rural Migration and Urbanization. Cambridge University Press, London (1976)

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Titel: Modernization, nationalization, globalization: Turkish higher education and academics with a perspective on the problem of identity
verfasst von: Belkıs Ayhan Tarhan
Meltem Onurkan Samani
Hasan Samani
Publikationsdatum: 17.10.2017
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Quality & Quantity / Ausgabe Sonderheft 1/2018
Print ISSN: 0033-5177
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-7845
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0611-7

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