Discourses and conceptions of migration and migrants in Turkish textbooks.

Turkey ranks first worldwide in the statistics (2014) regarding the reception of refugees. In Turkey's self-image, this was accompanied by a change from a transit country to a destination country for refugee flows. As recently as the second half of the 20th century, Turkey was a people-sending country due to labor migration to Western Europe. Multiple migration phenomena strongly shaped the collective memory of Turkish society in the 20th century. The EU's refugee agreement with Turkey in 2016, which was still little reflected in its domestic political implications there, further increased the explosive nature of the migration issue. Related questions are: How were immigration and emigration processes explained and evaluated in the past? How were they reconciled with the reason of state? How was acceptance brought about in the population? Did (did) moments of global citizenship education play a role?

The medium of textbooks is ideally suited to elaborate the state and societal parameters that, according to the respective readings in the past and present, determined the actions of the actors in the migration process. One of these parameters can be seen in the Turkish state's attempt to assert interpretive sovereignty over its diasporas through educational media.

The intended study is diachronic and goes back to the 1950s. Primarily, Turkish textbooks for history, religion, geography, and social studies are the subject, although textbooks for Turks abroad produced by the Turkish Ministry of Education are also included.

• Textbook analysis illuminating the historical background for Turkish migration discourse;
  Policy paper on approaches to GCE in Turkey based on the findings of the study;
• A research report on the presentation of discourses and images of migration and migrants in Turkish textbooks, in progress- to be finalized by early-August 2018.
• Conference Presentation: Çetin, Önder: “Constructing a collective memory in between “the favorable” and “the problematic”: Discursive representations of migration and migrants in Turkish textbooks,” presented at the 2nd Annual Memory Conference of the Memory Studies Association at the University of Copenhagen, December 14-16, 2017.
• Publication: Çetin, Önder: Migration and migrants in Turkish textbooks: Geography in focus, revised version of the paper presented at the 2nd Annual Memory Conference, under review for International Migration.
• Publication: Çetin, Önder: Migrants in between the ideal and the actual: A comparative analysis of the perception of migrants in Turkish textbooks and society. Paper in progress, to be submitted to the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies by late September 2018.