The Enlightenment Tradition and Science Education in Turkey

Abstract

This chapter reviews the development of the Enlightenment tradition and science education in Turkey beginning from the eighteenth century Ottoman Empire reform movements to the early post World War I years of Ataturk‘s modern Turkey through to today’s Turkey. We first define the Ottoman context and discuss the social, economic, and religious differences between the Ottoman society and European societies where the original Enlightenment took place. Importantly, Ottoman’s feudal structure and lack of clashes between the church and state did not ignite any drastic social and philosophical changes similar to that of the European Enlightenment. Instead, the initial motivation for reform and social change came from the Ottoman Empire’s relative loss of power to that of the scientifically advanced West. We provide a chronological description of the long-lasting modernization and reform movements of the late Ottoman Empire and Turkey with a focus on the social and political backdrop of these reform movements. We conclude our work by drawing from some of the earlier and contemporary writing regarding the Turkish modernization project by connecting it to science education.