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Although there are differences in identity construction depending on countries and periods, some courses have come to the fore in the education system in each period. In Turkey, the education system in general, and history, geography, citizenship and social studies courses, in particular, have instrumental importance in the construction of identity. When the literature is examined, it can be observed that there are many studies on history, social studies and citizenship lessons for identity construction. However, there is a limited number of studies on identity construction for the geography curricula. The main purpose of this research was to examine the secondary education geography curricula in Turkey in terms of identity and citizenship construction. The study was planned and carried out as a qualitative case study. Case studies often describe the exploration of a bounded system. In this research, the sample was limited to the 2005 and 2018 geography course curricula, and a detailed description was made by using "content analysis" based on the research purpose. As a result of the research, it was determined in both curricula that the national identity theme had the most expressions, and national identity was aimed to be built by presenting details about the geography of the homeland. In addition to national identity, it was determined that there were also contents related to social identity, ecological identity, universal identity, and a limited number of digital identity and religious identity themes. [Paper presented at the International Congress on Geographical Education (3rd, Sivas, Turkey, Oct 14-17, 2021).]

The main purpose of this study is to examine the mediation role of personal meaning profile in the relationship between resilience capacity and meaning in life. Data has been collected from 371 college students using Resilience, Personal Meaning Profile and Meaning in Life Scales. Jamovi 1.1.4 statistical program has been used for the analysis of the data. In the study, it has been observed that meaningful relationships exist between the sub-dimensions of the personal meaning profile and resilience besides meaning in life. Results show that there is a meaningful and positive relation between resilience and meaning in life. It has been also observed that there has been a positive relation between meaning in life and the achievement, relationship, self-transcendence, self-acceptance, intimacy, and fairness sub-dimensions of the personal meaning profile. However, no meaningful relationship between resilience and the religion sub-dimension of the personal meaning profile has been found. Considering the findings of the research, there is a significant mediation role of the personal meaning profile, except for the religion and self-acceptance sub-dimensions, in the relationship between the resilience capacity and the meaning in life. All findings have been discussed in terms of literature and the suggestion for further studies has been made. [This study was presented as an oral presentation at the 3rd International Eurasian Educational Research Congress.]

The freedom of conscience and belief can be defined as the freedom of people in what they wish to believe without the compulsion of political power and other people by means of laws and other means. The belief of religion that can be accepted as the natural extension of the freedom of conscience and belief is to be free in doing the requirements of the religion that the people believe in with its rituals. While it is not possible and effective to make restrictions in freedom of belief, today, there are some restrictions in some judicial systems in freedom of worship. With the principle of secularism which is settled among the principles that the alteration of which are not even be proposed, there have been some different decisions about the administrative acts that cause the violation of belief and worship freedom in the implementation of the right of education which is secured with Constitutional Law in Turkish Constitution. In this study, the effects of the incompatible decisions of administrative jurisdiction about the implementations of the administration related to the education right of students at universities, which is secured by the Fundemental Law, on the freedom of education, especially for the last ten years, will be examined. [This study was presented as an oral presentation in The International Conference on Modern Education Studies.]

This paper studied a new dimension of international students, who are citizens of another country but came back to Turkey for religious education where their parents or grandparents are citizens. Did a five-year religious education process based on the main sources of Islam lead to a change in these students' religious attitudes and behaviors, and if yes to what extent did these changes occur? A panel survey is conducted on these students in pre-education and post-education periods to answer this question. Without ignoring the effect of the social environment outside of education on religious attitudes, we found that students exhibit a more tolerant, nonstrict attitude toward both their coreligionists and those who have negative attitudes toward their religion. Additionally, in parallel with the deepening of religious knowledge, a questioning and critical perspective was formed with a decrease in superstitions. We found that the attitude change in female students was generally higher than that of male students.

As a country seeking admission to the European Union, this paper explores educational reforms in Turkey that enhance its possible entry into the European Union and changes still needed for it to be an equal partner. An overview of the school system in Turkey is provided including information on teacher training and preparation, special education policy, and post high school participation. Its educational system still faces significant hurdles and must address human rights issues in order to provide equal access and nondiscriminatory education for all. While strides have been made to improve educational opportunities, inequality is still a reality for many females and those of lower socio-economic status. Higher education opportunities continue to improve with infrastructure problems competing to keep pace with the number of facilities available. Turkey continues to address these educational concerns while progressing toward the goal of improving its status as a European Union candidate.

In the modern world, festivals and commemorative ceremonies, national pledges, songs are all used to help students connect to each other and their wider society, particularly to the nation state and its ideals. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how such rituals were used to different ends in terms of nation-building in the Republic of Turkey. The Western-oriented identity of the Turkish Republic began to take shape during the Ottoman era, and education played a very significant role in this. This paper first introduces the educational rituals of the Otoman state to set the scene for the main discussion, which centres on the development of new rituals in the Turkish Republic. Religious and sultanic rituals were replaced by new rituals which fostered Turkish identity and promoted secular nationhood. To this end, the most effective educational rituals -- national festivals, flag-raising ceremonies and Turkey's student pledge -- are examined in detail.

This paper scrutinises citizenship education in Turkey from the foundation of the Turkish Republic (1923) to the present and explores the extent to which it encourages inclusive or exclusive concepts of national identity and citizenship. In Turkey, where there are citizens belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, civic education plays a prominent role for promoting tolerance among citizens. Using framing questions from phase one of the International Association for the Educational Achievement's (IEA) research of Civic Education Across Countries, the civic education textbooks of Turkey are examined to determine the extent to which they promote democracy and human rights, make positive references to ethnic and religious minorities, and promote social cohesion. As Turkey was not included in phase one of the IEA study, the paper provides original information for comparative studies, reconsideration of citizenship education in multicultural societies and promoting an active national citizenry in Turkey. (Contains 8 notes and 3 figures.)

The purpose of this paper was to understand how Turkish mothers make meaning of the disability of their children with Mental Retardation (MR). Thirteen Turkish mothers who had at least one child with MR were the participants of the study. A qualitative interpretive framework was used for collecting and analyzing the data. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. Mothers' beliefs on the nature, causation, and treatment of the disability of their children were the main focus of the interviews. Some parents did not believe their children had a disability or misunderstood the nature of disability. Although most were aware of their children's developmental limitations, they, at the same time, perceived the condition of the disability as temporary. Both traditional and modern (bio-medical) beliefs were held by most of the mothers on the causation of the disability. Mothers identified traditional beliefs, especially the religious ones, as the most popular causal agents. Most mothers sought help from both modern and traditional agents. Mothers, who held strong traditional beliefs regarding the causation of the disability of their children, held strong traditional treatment beliefs and valued more traditional treatment practices rather than bio-medical ones. Among the traditional treatment practices, most mothers required help from religious agents. Regarding future expectations of mothers on the situation of their children, mothers wanted their children to be less independent, and for this reason, they sought a more individualized education for their children. Implications, limitations and directions for future studies are also discussed.

Introduction: This paper examines the relationship between gender-based violence (GBV) and religion in a range of forced displacement contexts. While it has been acknowledged that religion frequently shapes experiences of GBV survivors, little is known about the influences of religion on GBV experiences in forced displacement and its potential role in strengthening interventions. Methods: Utilizing empirical evidence from 58 interviews from the SEREDA project with forced migrants in Sweden, UK, Turkey and Australia, we outline the interactions between religious resources and GBV in migrants' forced displacement experiences. We conceptualise religious resources as comprising religious ideas, religious practices, religious experience and religious organization. Results: Survivors talked about religion spontaneously when responding to questions relating to resilience, coping mechanisms, and risk factors. Religion acted as both a "protective" and "risk" factor for GBV experiences. Religious beliefs were assets in coping with GBV experiences, but also contributed to creating an environment in which violence was normalized, exposing women to further harm. Religious practices supported survivors emotionally to cope with GBV but also some practices posed risks. Religious organizations in many cases served as a lifeline for many displaced women, offering practical and emotional support, however religious leaders at times encouraged survivors to stay in abusive relationships. Religious experiences "empowered" and "disempowered" survivors across the processes of forced migration. Discussion:We demonstrate the relevance and importance of acknowledging the role of religion in the experiences of GBV in forced displacement. Our analysis advances the understanding of religious resources as both protective and risk factors that affect forced migrants' experiences of GBV over time and place. We suggest a way forward for practitioners and researchers to account for the roles of religion in experiences of GBV and forced displacement, as opportunities and barriers to GBV prevention and response, and to work with religious leaders and local faith communities to strengthen protection of survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though Turkey's ruling party's (Justice and Development Party, the AKP) nation-building and desired citizen creation policies have been studied, its use of necropolitical narratives and propaganda in education has not been investigated. This paper addresses this gap by examining how the Turkish state ruled by the AKP has propagated its religious necropolitical narrative through the national curriculum and Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) in school textbooks, and magazines and comic books for children. The paper shows that these texts and comics try to indoctrinate children into a religious cult of martyrdom in different ways by encouraging them to view tragic death and getting killed for the nation as a positive event. This paper argues that these propaganda efforts are part of a religious necropolitical indoctrination campaign that seeks to create a new Islamist and jihadist generation of lifelong supporters of the AKP, which portrays itself in the educational texts as the embodiment of Islam, the Muslim Turkish nation and even the global Muslim community (ummah). This new religious generation is expected to believe that dying for the Islamist populist authoritarian regime is the greatest honour a person can bring upon themselves. This paper contributes to the necropolitics literature by showing that not only adults but also children have been targeted by authoritarian rulers' necropolitical propaganda attempts to create desired citizens who are ready to die for the regime, believing this is a religious obligation. Further research is needed to assess if and to what extent this propaganda has an impact on children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the use of religion by an authoritarian ruling party to delegitimize political opposition through securitization. The case study presented is the ruling AKP in Turkey, which initially promised to desecuritize the Kurdish issue to co-opt the Kurdish opposition but eventually resorted to the demonization narratives and repressive policies of the secular Turkish state; however, in addition to labeling the Kurdish opposition as terrorists, the AKP deployed religion to legitimize its repressive policies on religious grounds. The Turkish case shows that not in legitimizing (via desecuritization), but in delegitimizing opposition (via securitization) religion has been the main tool deployed by the ruling party. This finding needs to be tested in other contexts and cases. Additionally, since this paper only focuses on the narrative of the AKP's religious delegitimization, further research is needed to measure its efficacy and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing focus in political science on right-wing populist parties. But few comparative studies address their discourses and politics relating to family values, especially when involved with policy-making. Moreover, many comparative works about populism focus on a single region – often Western and Eastern Europe. This paper adopts a definition of populism with two different dimensions: the vertical (inclusive), which regards elites, and the horizontal (exclusive), which addresses 'foreigners'. The use of family values in political discourse and policy pertains to the two axes of populism. On the one hand are elites who are accused of being uncommitted to traditional values and morally corrupt. On the other hand are demographic concerns regarding declining birth rates among native populations and immigrants with large families. The stress on family values can also originate from a value orientation – or merely a tactical move – engendered by political competition. This paper specifically examines the politics of family values in the context of policies concerning gender equality, family planning and LGBT rights in three countries: Israel, Italy and Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the occurrence frequency of the values "justice, family union, independence, peace, scientificality, diligence, cooperation, sensitivity, honesty, aesthetics, tolerance, hospitality, freedom, wellness, respect, affection, responsibility, cleanliness, patriotism, benevolence" which the Ministry of Education requires that children acquire in the Civics Course, have been analyzed in the narrative works from Turkish and Western children's literature that are within children's sphere of interest and are also recommended by the ministry. The document analyzing technique from qualitative research has been used to obtain data. A total of 20 values have been examined in the works, sticking to the definitions given in the syllabus according to their frequency of occurrence in a word, sentence or context, and coded into the relevant value themes in the rating lists. Content analysis, percentage and frequency techniques have been utilized in the analysis of the data obtained. In the Turkish children's literary works (TCLW) as well as Western children's literary works (WCLW), it has been observed that the religion is more foregrounded than others and that there is neither equality nor a priority ranking among the frequencies of occurrence of the other values. 71% of the values studied in the works occur in the TCLW whereas 29% exist in the WCLW. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper addresses the sensitive issue of the teaching of religions and beliefs in schools by analysing two recent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. In these cases, the Court asserts that students should be exempted from compulsory courses on religion or from courses that are not conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralist manner in order to protect the rights of parents to raise their children in accordance with their beliefs and to protect the child's religious freedom. What emerges from both decisions are sound principles about how to implement and teach these kind of courses without violating the freedom of religion and belief or undermining the state competences on education. (Contains 4 notes.)

Education serves many valuable social functions. Among these functions are the development of skills among students that can be used later in the labor market, the passing of societal history and culture from one generation to the next, and the inculcation of important societal norms and values so students have the opportunity of becoming knowledgeable participants in the larger social system. The education system is society's primary socializing agent in attempting to integrate children into the larger social system. In many societies, the effectiveness of education as a socializing agent has been an issue, especially in those social systems characterized by substantial diversity. One diversity issue that places a significant amount of stress on the socializing and integrating function of education is immigrant status. The case of the Turkish population in Germany provides an excellent opportunity to study the integration effects of education because they have a relatively recent history in Germany. In addition, data are available to see how well the Turkish population is embedded in the larger social system and explore the specific role played by the German educational system in their integration. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between education and one dimension of integration: homeland identity. The authors examine, at a very fundamental level, the role education has taken in integrating Turks in Germany. In examining this relationship, the authors look at one measure of integration (homeland identity) among a sample of Turks who were educated in Turkey or in Germany. Results from the analysis indicate that Turks are not well integrated, and such lack of full integration leads to some ambiguity about homeland identity, particularly among Turks educated in Germany. While there is a small likelihood that Turks educated in Germany will identify with Germany rather than Turkey, there is no consistent consensus or dependency among this group in their views. The latter finding suggests some variability in the hold the community has on Turkish homeland identity. (Contains 5 figures, 2 tables and 11 notes.)

Pivetti et al. (2021a; 2021b) examined links between COVID-related conspiracy beliefs and acceptance of vaccinations in Italy and Finland in 2020. They found that moral purity negatively predicted confidence in science, whereas political orientation predicted COVID-related conspiracy beliefs. Confidence in science, general conspiracy beliefs, and COVID-related conspiracy beliefs were found to negatively predict support for governmental restrictions and attitudes towards vaccines, and positively predict perceptions of informational contamination. Finally, attitudes towards vaccines in general strongly predicted attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine. The current research seeks to replicate these findings conceptually on a predominately Muslim sample (N = 570, M age = 26.69, 69.8% females) in Turkey in 2021, when the COVID vaccines were widely available. Measures of religiosity and left, center, and right political orientations were added to the original instrument. Hypothesized serial mediational models were tested using structural equation modelling. Results revealed that left and center political orientations positively predicted COVID-related conspiracy beliefs and confidence in science. Religiosity was negatively related to confidence in science. Confidence in science and COVID-related conspiracy beliefs predicted general attitudes toward vaccines. Conspiracy beliefs predicted COVID-related conspiracy beliefs, which in turn negatively predicted support for government restrictions and positively predicted distrust in mainstream media. Attitudes towards vaccines were strongly and positively related to attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines. [This paper was added to the Special Issue on "Conspiracy Theories about Infectious Diseases" in a post-hoc manner. Online publishing allows the addition of new papers to a published special issue, thereby permitting a special issue to grow.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to clarify the concept of 'civilizational populism' and work towards a concise but operational definition. To do this, the article examines how populists across the world, and in a variety of different religious, geographic, and political contexts, incorporate and instrumentalize notions of 'civilization' into their discourses. The article observes that although a number of scholars have described a civilization turn among populists, there is currently no concrete definition of civilization populism, a concept which requires greater clarity. The article also observes that, while scholars have often found populists in Europe incorporating notions of civilization and 'the clash of civilizations' into the discourses, populists in non-Western environments also appear to have also incorporated notions of civilization into their discourses, yet these are rarely studied. The first part of the article begins by discussing the concept of 'civilizationism', a political discourse which emphasizes the civilizational aspect of social and especially national identity. Following this, the article discusses populism and describes how populism itself cannot succeed unless it adheres to a wider political programme or broader set of ideas, and without the engendering or exploiting of a 'crisis' which threatens 'the people'. The article then examines the existing literature on the civilization turn evident among populists. The second part of the article builds on the previous section by discussing the relationship between civilizationism and populism worldwide. To do this, the paper examines civilizational populism in three key nations representing three of the world's major faiths, and three different geographical regions: Turkey, India, and Myanmar. The paper makes three findings. First, while scholars have generally examined civilizational identity in European and North American right-wing populist rhetoric, we find it occurring in a wider range of geographies and religious contexts. Second, civilizationism when incorporated into populism gives content to the key signifiers: 'the pure people', 'the corrupt elite', and 'dangerous 'others'. In each case studied in this article, populists use a civilization based classification of peoples to draw boundaries around 'the people', 'elites' and 'others', and declare that 'the people' are 'pure' and 'good' because they belong to a civilization which is itself pure and good, and authentic insofar as they belong to the civilization which created the nation and culture which populists claim to be defending. Conversely, civilizational populists describe elites as having betrayed 'the people' by abandoning the religion and/or values and culture that shaped and were shaped by their civilization. Equally, civilizational populists describe religious minorities as 'dangerous' others who are morally bad insofar as they belong to a foreign civilization, and therefore to a different religion and/or culture with different values which are antithetical to those of 'our' civilization. Third, civilizational populist rhetoric is effective insofar as populists' can, by adding a civilizational element to the vertical and horizontal dimensions of their populism, claim a civilizational crisis is occurring. Finally, based on the case studies, the paper defines civilizational populism as a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, 'the pure people' versus 'the corrupt elite' who collaborate with the dangerous others belonging to other civilizations that are hostile and present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The founders of the secular Turkish Republic, the Kemalists used secular nationalist education to build a secular Turkish nation and to create their own version of modern pro-Western secular Turkish citizens. This paper argues that Turkey's current ruling party, the AKP (Justice and Development Party) has been using the same system of education to create its own desired citizens with Islamist Populist ideals. This has been done without changing the secular principles of the constitution and laws on national education since there are several constraints that would prevent AKP to have open and declared pro-Sharia changes to the law. Thus, unlike many other Islamists in the other parts of the world, the paper shows that the AKP has chosen to undermine the secularity of the system, constitution, and law in an ad hoc, gradual and undeclared fashion. The paper concludes by noting that no matter the change in political actors and their ideologies, education is monopolized by the state for political purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defines how political balances and changes in Turkey effect creation-evolution relation. Describes the influences of Bilim Arastirma Vakfi (BAV) on these changes, which are directly targeted to public education, and discusses the content of creationism. Questions why Islamic creationism is a copy of that of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). (Contains 29 references.) (YDS)

The study of migrant minorities in Europe has long been characterized by a turn to identity politics. This turn has had two shortcomings: First, it often conflates religion, ethnicity, and nationality, resulting in what I call "categorical astigmatism". Consequently, migrants find themselves lumped into categories they would not primarily identify with. Second, despite its importance in the lived experiences of migrants, class is treated as a "non-identity" and intra-migrant class differences do not get the attention they deserve. Building on these two criticisms, in this article, I first employ Bourdieu's theory of "classification struggles" to conceptualize "categorical astigmatism" and make a plea for categorical clarification. I then suggest the theory of intersectionality as a way out, highlighting the importance of class and its intersection with other markers of difference. Empirically, the paper builds on interviews with migrants from Turkey and Syria in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into the intricate relationship between religious populism and the legitimization of digital authoritarianism in Turkey. Specifically, it investigates how the ruling party, AKP, has strategically linked Islamist values to state policies as a means of justifying its repressive control over digital technology. Through an examination of internet governance at multiple levels—full network-level governance, sub-network or website-level governance, proxy or corporation-level governance, and network–node or individual-level governance—the study reveals the instrumentalization of religious populism to consolidate support and validate the government's autocratic agenda. Furthermore, it sheds light on the role of state-controlled religious institutions, traditional media, social media outlets, as well as religious leaders and organizations in shaping public opinion, enabling the government to exert greater control over the dissemination of information. By dissecting the religious populist justification of digital authoritarianism in Turkey, this research provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics at play in the realm of online governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Syrian crisis has reached its 10th year, this paper explores posttraumatic growth and the related factors among Syrian refugees in Turkey, with the aim of having a better understanding of the predictors of PTG and the risk factors that may play a role in the inhibition of the growth. In this cross-sectional study, 217 displaced Syrian refugees completed the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ), Brief COPE, General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES), PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), and sociodemographic information form by a self-reported online survey. Risk and protective factors were associated in bivariate analysis with growth p<0.05 and were retained in multiple regression models to control the confounders. Participants' 60.7% were females, and the mean age was 32.6± 9.4 years. Growth was found to be highest in the Personal Strengths, New Possibilities and Appreciation of Life, Relating to Others, and Spiritual Change. While the consistency of job education, economic status, education level, number of children, level of self-efficacy, level of Turkish, active coping style, religious coping, and self-distraction (p<0.05) were protective factors, the number of traumatic events, and the PTSD symptoms and self-blame were risk factors (p<0.05) in multiple analysis. However, no significant relationship was found for the variables of marital status, taking support, self-distraction, emotional and instrumental support, positive reframing, planning, cultural perception, working type, and age (p>0.05). In conclusion, the findings have provided valuable insight into the domains of the growth among Syrian refugees and discussed both clinical and research-based future recommendations that could be made to improve the mental health of the refugees based on the obtained results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the association between religion and female labor market outcomes using new micro-level data on two distinct Muslim denominations in Turkey: Sunni and Alevi Muslims. We find a positive and significant association between being an Alevi Muslim and female labor force participation and employment, whereas there are no significant differences in male labor market outcomes between the two denominations. We provide evidence that Alevi Muslims have more gender-equal views regarding the role of women in the labor market and consider themselves as more modern. Both Sunnis and Alevis consider themselves as believers in religion (Islam). However, Sunnis are more likely to abide by the rules of religion. We argue that differences in views on gender roles and self-identity regarding modernity between the two denominations drive the results on female labor market outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behind a veneer of "disinterested" concern, death rituals reflect and reproduce patterns of social and cultural stratification. This paper examines 296,483 death announcements published in a Turkish daily newspaper in a 60-year timespan. The content analysis of the texts shows that, first, the discourses around death reveal the complex overlaps between cultural boundaries and social stratification. Second, the patterns of social and cultural stratification in death announcements interweave with broad historical trends, making it possible to "read" societies through the lens of death. These historical trends map onto foundational issues, such as the gender gap, neoliberal transformations, modernization, and religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares "being Muslim" in Turkey with other Islamic countries and describes the regime changes of the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. Explains evolution in Islamic understanding and discusses creationism's effects and evolution's place in the high school biology curriculum. Defines the Science Research Foundation's (BAV) and Harun Yahya's roles in the Creationist movement. (Contains 37 references.) (YDS)

Defines Islamic creationism and anti-evolutionism in Turkey, provides information about political and cultural changes starting from the 1920s, and discusses Islamic movements at this time. Presents examples of politicians' approaches to this issue and points out the effects of Christian creationism and the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) on these movements. Includes a list of American creationists invited to Science Research Foundation (BAV) conferences. (YDS)

Blame avoidance has been one of the most applied strategies by policy makers in both democratic and non-democratic regimes to avoid responsibility and accountability in cases of failure and tragic events. It is also known that politicians have used religion for Machiavellian purposes, as exactly advised by Machiavelli. However, a systematic empirical analysis of how religion is used for blame avoidance by politicians has not been conducted. In this article, we aim to address this gap by examining the empirical data derived from the weekly Friday sermon texts produced by Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs and delivered in more than 90 thousand mosques every week to a large segment of the population in Turkey, where the majority claims to be religious. Starting with its violent response to the peaceful Gezi protests in 2013, the ruling AKP has opened up a new phase in Turkish political history by resorting to civilizational populism: it blamed the Western world for financing and masterminding the protests, using the protestors as internal pawns to attack Turkey and the Muslim World, suppressed the protests brutally and entered into a populist authoritarian regime. Our paper shows, following this turn, how the Diyanet sermons started using religion to help with the AKP's blame avoidance. The Diyanet either parroted the AKP's conspiratorial narrative or tried to convince the citizens that all negativities are works of God and with these humans are being tested by God. The AKP's use of religion to avoid blame is a text-book case of how both a religious institution and religious discourse can be used to help the incumbent avoid responsibility. Whenever, there was a problem that would the AKP votes, the Diyanet's sermons tried to shift the blame to either God or citizens or conspiratorial enemies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of increased education, due to an exogenous education reform, on time spent in religious activities by utilizing the Turkish Time Use Survey data. The education reform significantly rises individuals' years of schooling. We also document that for women, increased education has a negative causal impact on the allocation of time to religious activities. However, there are no significant effects of education on men's time spent in religious activities. As a result, we suggest that education plays an important role in altering individuals' religious behaviour through its effects on preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on and extending Marc Galanter's classic thesis on the "radiating effects" of courts, this paper proposes the concept of "trickle-down effects" in order to account for the complex ways in which court judgments may impact political processes, often taking place through the ideological manipulation of the judgments and leading to unintended and unforeseen consequences. The paper specifically examines the headscarf battles in Turkey and the pivotal role that the ECtHR judgments played in it. While the short-term legal impact was the confirmation of the ban on the use of headscarves, presumably supporting the principle of secularism, the long-term impact has been the exact opposite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaysia and Turkey, to a different degree and in different areas, continue to construct an Islamic identity. However, a clear divergence of position pertaining to religion can be seen in their respective constitutions, in particular with regard to the position of Islam and secularism. It is interesting to examine the constitutional position of religion and its consequence and influence in the construction of the constitution and legislation. The paper looks at the text of the constitutions and the approaches taken by the apex court in the two countries. The paper also looks at the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights since Turkey is a signatory of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The opposing positions taken by the two constitutions with regard to the influence of religion in public affairs surprisingly offers a coherent approach in constitutional construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Weber's articulate conceptualisation of the nexus between religion and economics, these phenomena have been examined through various academic viewpoints. While some take religion as a determining factor of economic performance, others argue that it is the economy that influences religiosity. This paper focuses on the manifestation of religion and economics in the political sphere regarding the case of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP). After discussing the literature on the relations between religion and economics, it scrutinises the AKP period, considering three specific pillars: (a) the early years of the AKP in which Western economic policies were implemented as a continuation of the Kemal Derviş period; (b) between 2008 and 2015, when the idea 'we can do as well' maintained the centre stage; and (c) 2015 and onwards, when the Islamist influence on economic policy became highly apparent, particularly regarding interest rates. This study argues that the AKP changed politically in terms of Islamic influence upon the economic sphere, however this remains at the discursive level for the time being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines ethics and morality as studied by Al Nursi, a reformist Muslim scholar accredited with the rise of the current Muslim revival in modern Turkey. The paper examines Al Nursi's macro theory of God's attributes and establishes a concise linguistic and semantic link between a sample of God's attributes and journalism ethics. The paper presents a normative perspective on journalism ethics from the religious-Islamic standpoint and maintains that the field of journalism ethics is further enhanced and transformed when the religious source of morality is brought to bear on ethics and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alevism has been regarded as a contested identity which is difficult to define because of its ‘syncretic’ character. Attempts at definition have been overwhelmed by essentialist approaches as well as different political agendas since the fifteenth-century Ottoman period. This paper aims to trace the history of Alevism with a particular focus on historical sources such as theVelāyetnāmesand the organization ofocaksanddergahs. The paper argues that we shall see Alevism as an ethno-religious identity which is formed under different social conditions and emerged through the complexities of the organization ofocaksin a vast territory encompassing different ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Religiously motivated welfare provisioning has played an increasingly important role in the Turkish social welfare arena over the previous two decades. This paper investigates the society-specific mechanisms behind the contemporary proliferation of religiously motivated associations (RMAs) in Turkey. The historical analysis of the development of the Turkish welfare regime demonstrates that the spread of RMAs cannot be attributed to retrenchments within the welfare state. In fact, the provision of social assistance by central and local state institutions has expanded over the same time period. The paper claims that the rise of RMAs is not only a response to increasing liberalization and economic deregulation, but also an outcome of the rise of religion as a principle line of cleavage within the political sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the conditions under which the sharing of sacred sites in Turkey is still possible despite the serious Sunnification campaign of the AKP regime. I argue that ideological, cultural, and pragmatic motivations led the Turkish state to refrain from interfering in practices the ruling party deems sacrilegious and distasteful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper aims to contribute to the growing Foreign Policy Analysis literature by focusing on the role of non-state actors in foreign policy implementation. Special attention is paid to the case of Turkey, which has emerged as a 'humanitarian state' in the last decade. In Turkey, relatively new Islamically oriented humanitarian NGOs (HNGOs) have been providing ever-increasing amounts of humanitarian aid throughout the former Ottoman lands including the Middle East and Africa. Employing a constructivist-realist perspective, this paper asserts that a 'parallelism,' if not a complementarity, exists between Turkey's Islamically oriented HNGO discourse and practice and AKP foreign policy implementation process. Based on primary qualitative data acquired from interviews, this study has identified various degrees of parallelism between the two, calling into question the status of these HNGOs as purportedly non-governmental entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual minorities consistently rank as the most disapproved of group in Turkey although the LGBTQ community remain largely invisible. To explain this disparity, we examine private and public responses to "homosexuality" along four dimensions: demographic factors, social context, religion and religiosity, and public morality. The data come from a nationally representative survey (N=1893). We tested four sets of variables to explain the persistence of mistrust toward sexual minorities. The first two, demographic factors and social context, show limited explanatory power. The third dimension of personal morality is also limited, because boundaries against LGBTQ individuals also cut across religion and religiosity. The fourth dimension, public morality, a vision of moral values shaping public life and political discourse, explains the particularity of the views toward non-straight sexual orientations as the specific alignment of a moral worldview with exclusionary cultural membership. Results are significant in two ways. First, they show that the mistrust of sexual minorities is high. Second, the public displays of mistrust are different from the forms of prejudice expressed toward other groups, such as ethnic minorities. The symbolic boundaries drawn vis-àvis LGBTQ individuals tells us more about the core values of belonging and solidarity in Turkish society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible to establish a radical separation between religion and politics in constitutionally secular states? Is religion a private or political matter? In many countries, religious people are becoming activists, involving politics, trying to change the policies based on their beliefs or get a share of the state power. Their claims sometimes fall within the democratic structure of the country, and sometimes outside of it. This paper provides insight into the relation between state and religion by focusing on the religious politics of two countries, Turkey and Hungary This study is, in essence, a crossregional and cross-religious comparative study, presenting the very first comparison of the state-religion relationships in the two countries. Ninian Smart's concept of dimensions of religion will be used as a framework to extract a pattern for each country. These dimensions exist in social systems and reflect the cultural and social milieu in which people socialize and build their own beliefs. Our goal is to present and prove that the religious features of Turkey and Hungary are comparable and show similarities along each dimension of Smart. Exploratory qualitative analysis will be employed to collect and analyze qualitative data in order to generate new concepts and generalizations. The data will be collected from open sources, such as newspapers, statistics, and survey results in Hungary and Turkey, to find the answer to the research questions. The main results of our comparative analysis are, first, evidence for substantial similarities regarding the presence of religion in the public sphere in each Smartian dimension, although in countries that are very different in terms of religion. Second, our systematic and structured analysis provides a strong and impartial invitation for further comparative research from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of women in Turkey wear headscarves. However, from 1997 to 2013, headscarves were banned in tertiary education institutions, due to the Turkish military's decision that headscarves are incompatible with secularism. This study examines the impact of wearing headscarves on women's educational attainment. In particular, it measures the impact of the headscarf ban by using a regression–discontinuity method, based on individual-level data from four countrywide surveys. Within the confines of the econometric analysis and data set used, the author finds statistically significantly lower tertiary educational attainment among headscarved women, but finds no evidence that the ban reduced the tertiary educational attainment of headscarved women. This result may reflect that, since only 3.5 percent of headscarved women born before the ban had some tertiary education, there was not much room for the methodological approach to capture any significant effects of the ban. HIGHLIGHTS - There exists a large gap in the educational attainment of headscarved women compared to that of non-headscarved women in Turkey, even after controlling for background variables. - This paper finds no evidence that the ban on headscarves at tertiary educational institutions, in effect from 1997 to 2013, reduced the tertiary educational attainment of headscarved women, which was already low. - Educational disadvantage for headscarved women begins after primary school. - Although lifting the headscarf ban was a good first step, eliminating the barriers to women's education will require a much broader perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the relationship between Islam and democracy has received considerable attention in the social science literature, very few studies have explained the dynamics of support for democracy through a micro-level, socio-psychological lens. Applying a novel perspective, this study analyzes the empirical nexus among Islamic religiosity, being open to new ideas and creativity (ONIC), and pro-democratic attitudes to probe the following two questions: Are Muslims who are open to new ideas and think creatively more supportive of democracy than those who are not? Could ONIC be an intervening factor between religiosity and support for democracy? To this end, the paper systematically (1) examines the interrelationship between ONIC and Islamic religiosity; (2) estimates the effects thereof on support for democracy; (3) assesses the mediating potential of ONIC between devoutness and pro-democratic attitudes through an illustrative case of Turkey. The findings indicate that ONIC and Islamic religiosity are not mutually exclusive. The evidence also suggests that, ceteris paribus, while religiosity is positively associated with pro-democratic attitudes, the mediating potential of ONIC is inconclusive. Religiosity and ONIC appear to have an independent effect on support for democracy. Educational reforms or policies that cultivate and support creative thinking might be consequential for building and fostering democracy in Islamic societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent paper in this journal argues that some cases of schizophrenia should be seen as cases of demon possession and treated by faith healers. A reply, also published in this journal, responds by raising concerns about the intellectual credibility and potentially harmful practical implications of demon possession beliefs. My paper contributes to the discussion, arguing that a critique of demon possession beliefs in the context of schizophrenia is needed, but suggesting an alternative basis for it. It also reflects on important differences between demonic and other forms of spirit possession and considers the implications of this for mental healthcare providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing care to a patient with cerebral palsy can have many negative impacts upon caregivers. This study was carried out to define caregiving burden in the caregivers of cerebral palsy patients and determine the relationships between religious coping, fatalism, and burden of care. This cross-sectional and correlational study included 132 caregivers. Data were obtained using the Religious Coping Scale, the Fatalism Scale, and the Caregiver Burden Scale. It was determined that 18.9% of the participants experienced a heavy care burden. The luck and pessimism dimensions of the Fatalism Scale were positively and weakly correlated with caregiving burden (p < 0.01), while there was no correlation between caregiving burden and positive or negative religious coping styles (p > 0.05). Perception of fatalism explained 10% of the total variance in caregiving burden (R = 0.329, R2 = 0.109, F = 5.195, p = 0.002). It is recommended that caregivers be supported by religious experts to strengthen positive religious coping styles and advisable fatalism perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve expertise, transplant surgeons in Turkiye undergo rigorous training, including medical school, residency, compulsory service, and extensive training in transplant surgery. Despite their high academic and clinical knowledge level, success in transplant surgery heavily depends on cultural competency. Through semi-structured interviews with 21 transplant surgeons specializing in kidney and liver transplants in Ankara, this study reveals how health illiteracy, culture, and folklore create significant barriers. Surgeons navigate these challenges while enduring harsh working conditions. This research highlights the critical role of cultural competency in transplant surgery, emphasizing the necessity for surgeons to understand and address the diverse cultural needs of their patients. Key findings indicate that surgeons must balance medical expertise with cultural sensitivity to deliver effective care. This study identifies four main cultural barriers: spiritual trust, family politics, health illiteracy, and subcultural incompetency. Effective transplant surgery requires a combination of theoretical proficiency and cultural awareness to meet a patient's needs and improve surgical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]