Construction of Ideals for Citizenship and Citizenship Education in Turkey with a Gender-Based Perspective: “A Narrative of Political Parenting”

Abstract

Although they are approached on an “equal” basis through laws, parents who are positioned as feminine and masculine in citizenship practices are one of the important elements in the gendered nature of citizenship and citizenship education. The purpose of this study is to reveal the narratives of mothers as parents about ideals of citizenship and citizenship education with a gender-based perspective. In the study conducted on the basis of narrative inquiry, both criterion and maximum variation sampling were used to determine the participants. First of all, in terms of gender-based citizenship perspective, considering that the gender of the child may be important in the citizenship ideals and child-rearing practices of the parents, the mothers who “had both a daughter and a son” were taken into consideration as participants, and on the grounds that expectations from citizenship education may differ based on gender, attention was paid to make sure that the children of the participants were at “primary school age”. In addition, since the narratives of citizenship experienced in Turkey are emphasized, the fact that the mothers are Turkish citizens and live in Turkey has been accepted as a basic criterion. Within the scope of these criteria, the differences in terms of educational status, social environment, age and occupation of the mothers participating in the study were also taken into account by making use of maximum diversity sampling. Thus, it is aimed to reveal various common patterns in the narratives of citizenship and citizenship education ideals, taking into account different social and temporal contexts. Accordingly, the participants of the study consist of 15 mothers. A semi-structured interview form was used as data collection tool and individual interviews were conducted at least twice. The data obtained were analyzed by thematic narrative analysis method. As a result of the study, the narratives were evaluated on the axis of two main themes within the scope of the ideals of “citizenship” and “citizenship education”. “Citizenship” narratives were examined based on the following sub-themes: barriers to becoming an ideal citizen: being a woman, and ideal citizenship conflict: public citizenship / domestic citizenship. On the other hand, the narratives of “citizenship education” were examined by considering the following sub-themes: “motherhood” as the subject of citizenship education and “fatherhood” as its complement, and citizenship education and patriarchal understanding as an area of conflict. It was seen that the participants expressed their gender as an important obstacle in the understanding of ideal citizenship that they experienced and constructed, and they revealed the conflicts between the two citizenship understandings, public and domestic. In addition, it has been found that motherhood assumes a primary responsibility and central role in citizenship education, while fatherhood has a more external and complementary nature. While the participants found the education given at school about citizenship to be egalitarian, they stated that the patriarchal understanding prevailing in social factors such as family and social environment did not support the education in question, and sometimes even built its opposite.