Educational Governance in Turkey: From the view of New Public Management and New Social Movement Theories

Abstract

New Public Management (NPM) and New Social Movement (NSM) theories emerged as a response to socio-political conditions of the 1980s. In order to understand the socio-political and socioeconomic transformations in Turkey, it is necessary to focus on NPM and NSM literature together. More importantly, in the age of NPM and NSM it is vital to understand the development process of education, and its importance as a tool which has been used to create social capital in Turkey, since this paper aims to answer the following questions: How is it possible to explain increasing religiosity in education in secular Turkey? How does NPM open up opportunity spaces in the governance of education? How have NSMs become involved in the resourcing of education? How have NSMs redefined educational governance? This paper will attempt to show the importance of education for all governments from the beginning of the Turkish Republic, the Turkish governments used education as a tool for spreading their political ideology. So there have been various implementations from secularist policies to Islamist militarist policies in the Turkish education system. After giving some information about educational policies, which have been shaped around secularism, militarism and Islamism, the second section will show the interaction between education and New Public Management (NPM). By doing a primary and secondary literature review, this paper will first discuss the neoliberal changes that happened between the 1980s and 2000s, and secondly, will indicate how NPM agendas transformed education from a social service to the private service.