Shaping hearts and minds? Political common sense and educators’ responses to populist religious discourse and policy in Türkiye

Abstract

Populist leaders often intertwine religious ideals with nationalist educational agendas. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the ruling Justice and Development Party politicizes the sacred through education. Drawing on Clifford Geertz’s political common sense, Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus, and Ann Swidler’s cultural toolkits, we analyze in-depth interviews with teachers and principals in general schools and Imam and Preacher Schools. Findings reveal patterned responses across school types. In general schools, we identify Strategic Distancers, who avoid political engagement to manage professional risk; Assertive Endorsers, who frame Islamization as popular will; and Professional Critics, who contest these policies through expertise, meritocracy, and secular pedagogy. In Imam and Preacher Schools, we identify Institutional Pragmatists, who treat the school as a neutral workplace; Legitimating Defenders, who emphasize curricular and bureaucratic similarity; and Moral–Legal Endorsers, who justify religious education as both moral necessity and public demand. We challenge assumptions that populists successfully indoctrinate educators. Instead, educators negotiate such discourses through political common-sense reasoning shaped by socialization, institutional roles, and everyday constraints.