The case of Turkey: Using Neoliberalism and Gramsci’s concept of Hegemony to analyze the changes in Turkey’s education

*Key Terms: Neoliberalism, marketization and hegemony.Power for the ruling classes, comes not from force but ideological manipulation and control. Schools and education play a major role in perpetuating this hegemony, reinforcing the social norms of dominance and obedience. In many ways the Turkey’s comprehensive system had its roots in Gramsci.Each and every action taken by state in the realm of education do affect the whole society. Since 2002, with the coming of conservative democrats to power, the assessment system, the contents of the lessons and many other things regarding national education have passed through very serious reforms but these haven’t brought about a real change. One of the clear indicator of this is PISA. Results show clearly that Turkish education produces less successful students compared to many OECD countries, and even below the average (PISA 2012).For about 5 years, we have been witnessing a dramatic shift in the proportions of different types of schools in Turkey. The numbers of private schools as well as imam hatip schools (a type of vocational school which has more “Islamic” curricula) are on the rise. From my point of view, this shift is being done mainly for two reasons.First, educational system is in constant change, which is in accordance with demand of ruling party to create a new society that will accept the ideology of them voluntarily. As Gramsci stated before: “Every relationship of ‘hegemony’ is necessarily an educational relationship and occurs not only within a nation, between the various forces of which the nation is composed, but in the international and world- wide field, between complexes of national and continental civilisations.” (Gramsci, 1971: 666)Secondly, to meet the needs of neoliberal market . In my paper, I will try to analyze the change in the curriculas, numbers of the schools and so on by giving references to both Gramscian terminology as well as the criticals of neoliberal approach.

Please use the refrences below . They must be in essay

Gramsci, A., (1971), Selections form the Prison Notebooks, Hoare, Q and Nowell Smith, G(eds.), New York: International Publishers.Introduction. Apple, M. et al. Mapping the sociology of education: social context, power and knowledge Chapter 14. Ball, S. J. New states, new governance and new educational policy