Teaching a state-required course: the history of the Turkish Revolution

Abstract

This paper studies innovative approaches and challenges to teaching the state required common core course of the history of the Turkish Revolution. The Turkish state believes that teaching the Turkish Revolution to the younger generations helps to spread the ideology of the Turkish Republic. The paper summarizes the history of the course since the foundation of the Turkish Republic and critically discusses its ideological foundations and changes in its methods and premises over time. Teaching a state-required course creates several problems such as lack of student interest and limited exposure to the history of contemporary Turkey. In order to deal with these problems, teaching techniques have been adopted from the New History approach and improved the required curriculum.