CURRICULAR POLICYMAKING PROCESS IN TÜRKİYE: PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHERS, ACADEMICIANS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

2022-10
Baştürk, Mustafa
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
246
views
533
downloads
One of the prerequisites for improving the quality of school education is to have high-quality education policies. In this context, scientific information from stakeholders on curricular policies can contribute to improving the calibre of educational policies. In line with this understanding, this study aimed to investigate the perceptions of three significant stakeholder groups – teachers, academicians and related government officials – regarding the curricular policymaking processes in Türkiye. This qualitative case study was conducted within the scope of the three stages of the “Policy Cycle” Model (problem identification, policy formulation and policy implementation), utilizing the “Single-Case Embedded Design”. Information-rich participants were selected through the “purposive/purposeful sampling method” and its “strategies of criterion sampling”, “snowball/chain sampling” and “maximum variation sampling”. The data were collected from 15 teachers, 9 academicians and 14 government officials through face-to-face in-depth interviews using semi-structured interview protocols. The transcribed voice data were converted into findings utilising content analysis; the results were interpreted and discussed under the 12 main themes that emerged from 58 coded categories. The findings revealed that, for more than forty years, curricular/educational policies in Türkiye had not been formulated and implemented as appropriately as expected. The main reasons for this are exposed as follows: 1) Curricular policy-making processes conducted with institutionalist and elitist approaches under the influence of cultural – mostly political – factors were not very democratic and/or scientific; 2) Proper stakeholder participation could not be (are not) insured; 3) Incongruous dissemination of new policies to practitioners (teachers), and the issues concerning teachers’ negative attitudes, teacher quality and capacity-building was likely to hinder appropriate implementation. Prominent implications are: 1) There is a need for the establishment of an uppermost (umbrella) ideology of education that can guide policies; 2) Democratic and meritocratic stakeholder participation in policy-making must be ensured; 3) Teacher quality should be improved; 4) Curricula (implementations) must be emancipated from the hegemony of LGS and YKS examinations through the abolishment of these two national antagonists, or rather foes.
Educational/curricular problem identification, Educational/curricular policy-making/formulation, Educational/curricular policy implementation, Qualitative case study, Single-case embedded study design
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/99774
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

Construct validity and factor structure of student selection examination across subgroups
Arıkan, Serkan; Berberoğlu, Halil Giray; Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education (2010)
In developing countries, there is a great demand for university education. In order to select students to universities a standardized test score is used. In Turkey, the Student Selection Test (SST) have important role in admission to universities. However, there is very limited knowledge about what SST mathematics sections actually measures. The main purpose of the present study is to evaluate the content of the mathematics subtest of the SST in line with mathematical cognitive skills and eventually provide...
What Do Teacher Candidates in Turkey Think About Their Teacher Education? A Qualitative Study
Eret Orhan, Esra (Turkish Education Association, 2017-2-21)
Teachers have a significant role to provide the education that societies need. Therefore, the content and quality of teacher education is quite important for educating successful and competent teachers. Teacher candidates admitted to teacher education are expected to gain certain skills during their education. Moreover, the dimensions of teacher education should have an effectiveness to foster the development of these skills. This qualitative study aims to evaluate teacher education from the perspectives of...
Achieving Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Early Childhood Education Through Critical Reflection in Transformative Learning
Feriver, Şebnem; Olgan, Refika; Teksöz, Gaye (Springer, Cham, 2019-08-01)
The central role of education in creating a more sustainable future has been already recognized by educators and policy-makers alike. This chapter argues that this can only be truly achieved through the efforts of teachers in implementing an “education of a different kind,” a general educational shift that seeks to encompass a converging transformation of the priorities and mindsets of education professionals. In this regard, the professional preparation of teachers, as the leading actors in shaping childre...
Professional development of teachers in PISA achiever countries: Finland, Estonia, Japan, Singapore and China
Tonga, Funda Eda; Eryiğit, Sümeyra; Yalçın, Fatma; Erden, Feyza Tantekin (2019-11-11)
The role of teachers in education is widely acknowledged in educational studies that routinely find that quality of teaching is fundamental to student success. Accordingly, this study set out to examine and describe the professional development of teachers in countries where students perform better in the PISA assessment, namely, Finland, Estonia, Japan, Singapore, and China. Data were obtained from primary sources and compared using Bereday's method. The general structure and systems used for professional ...
The development of distance education systems in Turkey Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia
Olaf, Zawackirichter; Kondakçı, Yaşar; Svenja, Bedenlier; Utman, Alturki (2015-12-01)
In many countries, open and distance education is perceived as a way to meet the growing need for higher education. This paper explores the development of online and distance education in three countries that are still a white spot on the landscape of international distance education research although they have implemented elaborated distance education systems: Turkey, Russia and Saudi-Arabia. In order to understand the current state of distance education systems in the three countries, their respective sys...
Citation Formats
M. Baştürk, “CURRICULAR POLICYMAKING PROCESS IN TÜRKİYE: PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHERS, ACADEMICIANS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2022.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr