“The Narrative of Religion” in the High School Textbooks of the Early Republican Period in Turkey

Abstract

Middle of the 20th century, Turkish Republic was entered nation-construction process. It rebuilt its education system in order to create a new and modern society. Within this scope, one of the main goals of history education was to form a “national identity” and create a “sense of belonging based on ethnicity and language”, as was that of the language education. Most important thing about this identification process is to pass secular identityin spite of traditional religious identity. For secular identity construct religious thought were discussed. This study dealt with the nature of “religious debates” observed in Türk Tarihi’nin Ana Hatları Methal Kısmı (Prolegomena to an Outline of Turkish History) and Tarih I-IV (History I-IV) textbooks, which were among the influential history education instruments of that period, and the reasons for such debates. To this end, the above-mentioned high school history textbooks were subjected to document analysis and discourse analysis. The construction of evaluations made on the phenomenon of religion and the Islam in the relevant textbooks was focused on besides the intellectual infrastructure reflected by this organization. In this context, the suitableness of inclusion of religious debates in the high school history textbooks in terms of history education was discussed. As a result it was observedthat in spite of religious thought, positivist, naturalist, Darwinist etc. Thougt were used to shed rekigious thought. And was wanted from students to have task awareness by political reaction and using religion for politic speech. It was aimed to build secular social structure identity.