A comparison of religious education in secondary schools in Turkey and England : with special reference to the teaching of Islam

This study is concerned with the comparison of religious education in Turkey and England with special reference to the teaching of Islam in secondary state schools. It aims to realise the following two main objectives in terms of secondary school textbooks: 1. To indicate to what extent the adoption of a confessional or non-confessional approach in religious education makes an impact on the teaching of religion. 2. To describe and compare the similarities and differences in the teaching of Islam in state schools and their connection with broader educational policy in Turkey and England. . It begins with an investigation of historical developments in religious education in Turkey and England, then turns to examine different aspects of the presentation of Islam in terms of selected textbooks from the two countries. The thesis concludes with a presentation of the findings and contribution of this research. It is observed that having a confessional or non-confessional approach in religious education made different impacts on the teaching of Islam. In England, mostly because of a non-confessional presentation of Islam, historic western prejudices and distortions, particularly with regard to the doctrinal dimension of Islam, largely disappeared. An attempt was made to present Islam as far as possible in its own terms. However, the creation of new prejudices and distortion about the portrayal of Islam could not be precluded in the English textbooks selected, particularly over some issues such as women and use of force in Islam. It should also be noted that compared to Turkey Islam has relatively been presented in its contemporary forms, as well as consideration of pupils' educational development. Due to the adaptation of a confessional approach in religious education Islam is presented as a possible and desirable way of life in the Turkish textbooks selected. A certain degree of indoctrination and promotion of Islam, and a more sympathetic mode of expression with reference to Islam were observed, while exhibiting limited adaptability to complying with the changing conditions of Turkish society from the point of view of religious education and of pupils' educational necessities. Moreover, as far as possible, writers of Turkish textbooks tried to present Islam as an individualistic religion in line with the secular understanding of the Turkish state. Non-Islamic religions were generally externalised as religions. With respect to this, Christianity was treated in terms of the Islamic understanding of religion, and the dominant influence of the Qur' an and the traditional Islamic viewpoint about ahl al-kitab (possessor of the holy texts) was note

A Bibliographic Review on the Qualification of Articles about Values Education in Turkey

The study aims to analyse the scientific academic background of the concept of ‘values education’ which has nearly twenty years historical background in Turkey. In this context, 957 articles completed by the end of 2017 regarding values education were examined. The articles in the research have been examined by considering variables such as publishing performance in terms of year, institution, department; distribution by method and related components, and according to the topics discussed; theory, approach, and models used in creating scientific background. The research is structured in descriptive document scanning model. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in data analysis. Examination forms developed by the researchers were used to analyse the articles. As a result of the examinations, it is carried out that the highest number of articles (113) was reached in 2015; while most of the articles (70.7%) are written by researchers working in the field of education, researchers from the fields of theology (11.6%), science-literature (6.1%) and other fields (4.5%) have also contributed extensively to the articles; the rate of articles scanned in high-level indexes (SSCI, SCI and AHCI) and articles in foreign languages was low; the studies which samples are from primary and higher education are more intense; the most addressed issues were the value preferences, and attitudes and evaluations regarding the values education; in 22.7% of the articles, a clear, understandable and independently followed and repeatable method was not specified; while the explanation of academic contribution of the article was found to be incompatible with the subject, problem and method, and scientifically problematic in 4.2% of the articles, no explanation about the academic contribution was specified in half of the articles

John M. Hull: Bir Din Eğitimcisi

Profesör John Hull, uluslar arası düzeyde din eğitimi alanında isim yapmış, uzun yıllar İngiltere Birmingham Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesinde öğretim üyeliğinde bulunmuş saygın bir bilim adamıdır. Bu makalede, din eğitimi bilimine önemli katkılar yapmış Hull'ın hayatı, bazı konulardaki görüşleri, ulusal ve uluslar arası seviyede din eğitimine yaptığı katkılar ortaya konulmaya çalışılacaktır. Ayrıca son derece zengin olan eserlerinin bir listesi sunulacaktır

Pluralism and Constructivism in Turkish Religious Education: Evaluation of Recent Curriculum of Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge Lesson

Okullarda din derslerinde geleneksel din eğitimi yaklaşımlarının günümüz ihtiyaçlarını karşılama konusunda yetersiz kaldığı iddia edilmektedir. Bu nedenle de çoğulcu din eğitimi yaklaşımları daha fazla kabul görmektedir. Türkiye'de, diğer branşlardaki program değişimine paralel olarak 2005'te ortaöğretim din kültürü ve ahlak bilgisi öğretim programı yapılandırmacı anlayış göz önüne olarak hazırlanmıştır. Din dersindeki değişim ihtiyacına somut bir cevap olarak adlandırılabilecek yeni DKAB dersi programı kapsamında eski programla bağlantılı olarak din eğitiminde çoğulculukla ilintili üç konu irdelenmeye çalışılacaktır. Bu konular; (i) Din eğitimi ve yapılandırmacı yaklaşım (ii) Aleviliğin öğretimi (iii) İslam dışı dinlerin öğretimi. DKAB'nin eski programına göre yeni programlarında öğretim alanlarının teorik olarak değerlendirilmesi değerlendirmede bulunulan üç konuda da çoğulculuk yönünden olumlu bir gelişmedir. Fakat yine de bunun yeterli olduğu söylenemez.It is argued that a traditional approach to religious education is not sufficient to meet the necessities of contemporary world. For this reason, pluralistic approaches to religious education receive a particular attention in the recent years. In line with the other school subjects, the curriculum of secondary religious education was changed in Turkey. It is stated that the new curriculum was prepared taking the constructivist learning theory into consideration. The new curriculum may be accepted as a response to the demand for change in religious education. In this article, the following three issues related to pluralism are examined in terms of the new religious education curriculum: (i) Religious education and constructivist approach, (ii) the teaching of Alawism and (iii) the teaching of non-Islamic religions. An analysis of the curriculum indicates that some improvements have been made in line with pluralism

Pluralism and Constructivism in Turkish Religious Education: Evaluation of Recent Curriculum of Religious Culture and Ethical Knowledge Lesson

Okullarda din derslerinde geleneksel din eğitimi yaklaşımlarının günümüz ihtiyaçlarını karşılama konusunda yetersiz kaldığı iddia edilmektedir. Bu nedenle de çoğulcu din eğitimi yaklaşımları daha fazla kabul görmektedir. Türkiye'de, diğer branşlardaki program değişimine paralel olarak 2005'te ortaöğretim din kültürü ve ahlak bilgisi öğretim programı yapılandırmacı anlayış göz önüne olarak hazırlanmıştır. Din dersindeki değişim ihtiyacına somut bir cevap olarak adlandırılabilecek yeni DKAB dersi programı kapsamında eski programla bağlantılı olarak din eğitiminde çoğulculukla ilintili üç konu irdelenmeye çalışılacaktır. Bu konular; (i) Din eğitimi ve yapılandırmacı yaklaşım (ii) Aleviliğin öğretimi (iii) İslam dışı dinlerin öğretimi. DKAB'nin eski programına göre yeni programlarında öğretim alanlarının teorik olarak değerlendirilmesi değerlendirmede bulunulan üç konuda da çoğulculuk yönünden olumlu bir gelişmedir. Fakat yine de bunun yeterli olduğu söylenemez.It is argued that a traditional approach to religious education is not sufficient to meet the necessities of contemporary world. For this reason, pluralistic approaches to religious education receive a particular attention in the recent years. In line with the other school subjects, the curriculum of secondary religious education was changed in Turkey. It is stated that the new curriculum was prepared taking the constructivist learning theory into consideration. The new curriculum may be accepted as a response to the demand for change in religious education. In this article, the following three issues related to pluralism are examined in terms of the new religious education curriculum: (i) Religious education and constructivist approach, (ii) the teaching of Alawism and (iii) the teaching of non-Islamic religions. An analysis of the curriculum indicates that some improvements have been made in line with pluralism

Values in the Curricula of Religious Education and Social Studies in Primary Schools in the Context of Local-Universal Dilemma

This study aims to identify the approach of teaching curricula of primary courses of religious education and social studies values and to determine the weight of values found in these programs with regard to various aspects such as being open to novelty-conservatism, individualism-being social, nationalism-universalism, self-expansion-self transcendentalism. To do this, the general approach of these curricula to values has been identified based on the relevant literature and programs, values categories have been established based on Schwartz's values theory and the programs have been scanned with categorical contents analysis technique. The reason why Schwartz's values theory was taken as the basis of category formation is that this theory offers many resources to analyze the relationships between local and global values that are known to have taken place in recent years in our education. As a result, both of the curricula were found to indicate a tendency from local values towards universal values with the changes made in recent years, and social studies were found to be ahead of religious education in terms of reflecting these tendencies in the content of the program