Awareness of and support for human rights among Turkish university students

Human rights have a high place on the agenda of the world today. In the eyes of their defenders they are a sine qua non for the peace and the welfare of mankind and for democratic ideals. On the other hand the human rights records of many countries are still very poor and in some cases even scandalous. Thus the promotion and the reinforcement of human rights, their propagation, cultivation, and protection everywhere, depend upon the ceaseless efforts of all those concerned, including both official authorities and civil societies alike. As part of these efforts, studies on the attitudes of strategic social groups such as youth, women, and minorities with regard to human rights may provide some useful information and clues for both theoretical understanding and practical, preventive, and corrective purposes. In view of this, the present study attempts to uncover certain facts concerning the awareness of and the support for human rights in one such strategic group in Turkey: university students

The effect of international migration on religious observance and attitudes in Turkey

As part of a larger inquiry into the consequences of international migration for those who remain in the country of origin, detailed interviews were conducted with 234 adults in four Turkish provinces. Three migrant-status categories were defined: (a) Returned migrants, (b) Nonmigrant close kin or friends of migrants, and, as a control group, (c) All others. With respect to religious observance and adherence to religiously based viewpoints, group (a) was the least "traditional," and group (c) the most "traditional." In between was group (b). Of the two possible explanations for such a pattern - recruitment and socialization - recruitment appeared highly significant. The evidence for socialization, however, was mixed. General social change, not migration as such, would appear to be the more likely factor to move individuals' religious observance and attitudes along a "traditional"/"non-traditional" continuum. © Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 1998

Does international migration encourage consumerism in the country of origin? - A Turkish study

As part of a larger inquiry into the consequences of international migration for those who remain in the country of origin, detailed interviews were conducted with 234 adults in four Turkish provinces. Three migrant-status categories were defined: (a) Returned migrants, (b) Non-migrant close kin or friends of migrants, and, as a control group, (c) All others. Group (a) was the most likely to own various manufactured items, and group (c) the least, with group (b) in between. But when, within each migrant-status category, those who did not own but wanted a particular item were added to those who already owned it, much of the difference by migrant-status disappeared. This was particularly so with regard to 'necessities.' Controlling for age, sex, urban-rural residence, and schooling produced an essentially inconsistent pattern of association between these characteristics and owning or wanting a particular item. It did, however, reveal a widespread persistence of not wanting one or another of these items side by side with a pattern of wanting it. While owning or wanting something seemed to received only limited support from the consumption patterns of relatives and friends, not wanting something seemed to receive considerable support from this source. This seems unlikely to continue, however, in the face of changes now taking place in Turkey

The ethnic question in an environment of insecurity: The Kurds in Turkey

This article examines the effect that a poor structural context, what we term an 'environment of insecurity', has on the Kurdish ethnic nationalist mobilization in Turkey. The empirical evidence for this analysis is based on data from the 1993 Turkish Demographic and Health Survey [TDHS]. The data provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first reliable and representative figures on the situation of Kurds in Turkey. Our key claim is that the Kurdish population in Turkey is relatively much worse off than the Turkish population in the country. This claim is strongly supported by the data. Many other factors also account for the ethnic nationalist mobilization, but we argue that the Turkish Kurds' environment of insecurity, materially and non-materially, stands out as a key package of both causal and intermediate variables behind the ethnic revival

The Changing Waves of Migration from the Balkans to Turkey: A Historical Account

Ahmet İçduygu and Deniz Sert tell the history of migration from the Balkans to Turkey from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. They relate this history to nation-building, but also to economic conditions and specific Turkish concerns, such as the perceived need for immigration to compensate for a declining population at that time. They also demonstrate that after 1990, ethnic migration decreased and irregular labour migration became more important

The Study of Irregular Migration

AbstractThe study of irregular migration as a specific social phenomenon took off during the 70s in the US. Since then, the academic interest has continually grown and spread, first to Europe and, in the last years, to other regions worldwide. This interest can certainly be related to the increasing attention paid to the study of migrations more in general (Castles & Miller, 1993). The trend can be linked to those broad and complex social and economic changes, often subsumed under the concept of globalization. The specific focus on irregular migration, though gaining momentum throughout the 1980s, reached preeminent attention in the 1990s. On both sides of the Atlantic, the explosion of the so-called "migration crisis" (Zolberg & Benda, 2001) and the emergence of irregular migration as a widespread social fact raised the attention of public opinion and academics alike. Moreover, in recent years, what seemed at first to be an issue concerning only the high-income regions of the planet, now involves also medium and low-income ones, making irregular migration a truly global structural phenomenon (Cvajner & Sciortino, 2010a; Düvell, 2006)

Irregular Migration Theories

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