‘Who will fit in with whom?’ Inclusive education struggles for students with dis/abilities

ABSTRACT

Inclusive education (IE), as a global movement, has been part of many nations’ policy agendas. As the global ideas travel across borders, the meaning of this term has taken various forms in local and national discourses. Thus, this study examines teachers’ conceptualizations and experiences of IE for students with dis/abilities (SwDs) in Turkey. SwDs are one of the largest groups who are marginalised and excluded from accessing education and participating in meaningful learning experiences. Cultural historical activity theory was used to understand the teachers’ meaning-making of IE in relation to their context. This qualitative study was conducted in four schools in a southwestern city in Turkey. Applying a photo elicitation approach, a classroom photo with a hypothetical vignette was used as a stimulus to generate focus group discussions and individual interviews. Classroom observations and document collections guided the exploration of SwDs’ experiences and the context of their schooling. Using constant-comparative data analysis, two themes were identified: ‘Who is in? Who is out? Challenges to access,’ and ‘What happens after placement?’ The findings revealed that SwDs had justice struggles in regard to misdistribution of access, misrecognition of their abilities and backgrounds, misrepresentation of their voices, and participation in learning activities.     

Profile and Motivations of Registered Whole-Body Donors in Turkey: Istanbul University Experience

Little is known regarding the profiles of whole body donors in Muslim majority countries where donation is scarce. Therefore, this study aims to profile registered donors in Turkey by means of a survey. The explored data could be used to improve ongoing campaign efforts and ethical practices such as commemoration services. Registered donors of the donation programs at the two faculties of medicine of Istanbul University were compared with the national population and a cluster analysis was performed to reveal any concealed sub-groups. Data from 188 respondents were analyzed. The majority of registered donors were married (42%), male (65.4%), aged over 50 years (76%), held a tertiary education degree (49.7%), and were irreligious (58.5%). Cluster analysis revealed two groups with significantly different educational levels, marital statuses, and religious choices. Regarding whether their bodies could be used for education or research, the majority (64.5%) of the respondents left the decision to the anatomy department. Similarly, 73.8% approved indefinite use of their organs, body parts and/or skeletons. The respondents were also willing to share their medical history (94.2%) and personal information (81.6%) if needed. Motivational themes for body donation including usefulness, impermanence, religion, awareness, and kinship were devised after a thematic analysis. Among the respondents, 56.5% were registered organ donors and 63.3% were frequent blood donors. The results of this study provide data that may help revising informed consent forms, developing and implementing thanksgiving ceremonies, and selecting additional targets for supporting body donation campaign activities such as organ and blood donation units.     

土耳其政治现代化的历史轨迹

加强中央集权的奥斯曼帝国改革,导致了官僚集团内部推动现代化力量的形成,这一力量最终推翻了帝国的王朝统治.奥斯曼帝国的改革和凯末尔改革都遵循着自上而下的权威主义模式,改革的内容主要集中在军事和政治方面,经济现代化长期受到忽视.凯末尔改革造成了上层官僚的世俗文化与下层人民的伊斯兰文化的断裂.当代土耳其多党民主制与经济现代化的发展将广大的农村人口卷入到现代化进程之中,同时经济精英也成长起来,土耳其的政治现代化有了国家体制之外的推动力量,权威主义的现代化模式遇到了挑战.军事政变与政治伊斯兰的兴起都反映了当代土耳其两种现代化道路与模式之间的矛盾与斗争.     

When the child gets in the news? A case study on the national written media in Turkey

The main purpose of this study is to analyze news stories regarding children in the national print media in the last five years using top eight newspapers in terms of circulation and evaluate these news stories based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was issued by the UN and signed by Turkey. The research was undertaken as a case study. The study data were collected from top eight newspapers in terms of circulation between 2010 and 2014 in order to reveal when and how newspapers at national level represent children and the scientific content of impressions in the national media. Results show that children appear in the national media in mostly negative cases. In conclusion, it was observed in this study, children’s rights to life, development, protection, and participation were violated at both national and international levels. In this sense, news reflects the truth about “children’s rights violations”. However, the way that children appear in news and reflection in media constitute a secondary children’s rights violation.     

Restructuring reforms in Turkish teacher education: Modernisation and development in a dynamic environment

The paper examines the effectiveness of recent reforms in teacher education in Turkey, specifically the restructuring of programmes in university faculties of education. It first, briefly, sets the reforms of the 1990s in an historical context, prior to the 1997 Act which increased the length of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years, and the 1998 restructuring of faculties of education. It considers the national need for the restructuring of teacher education and the issues involved. The thrust of the paper is a study of how teacher educators across the country perceive both the changes and their effect on the quality of teacher education, methodology as a discipline, school partnerships, and relationships with the Ministry of National Education.     

土耳其的私人补习及其对高考的影响

私人补习机构在土耳其被称为"dersane"。由于土耳其高等教育入学需求日益高涨,高考竞争越来越激烈。面对如此巨大的升学压力,更多的家长希望子女通过参加私人补习增加高考成功的机会。本文较详细地分析了影响参加私人补习的各种因素及其对高考的影响,并略举了韩国和我国私人补习情况。     

Travelling policies and contextual considerations: on threshold criteria

Educational policy borrowing has become rather common in our globalised world. However, the literature lacks contextual criteria that may be employed by researchers and policy makers to assess the correspondence of a particular policy to the local context of a borrowing system. Based on a secondary analysis of documents and research reports, this paper describes the process of policy borrowing in the Israeli and Turkish educational systems. Discrepancies were found between the basic qualities of the borrowed policies and the contextual features and processes that characterise each educational system. The lack of congruency appears to be even deeper in centralised structures where the act of policy setting is done by top-level policy makers who are isolated from local school circumstances. Threshold criteria referring to fundamental considerations during decision making are offered and their theoretical and practical implications for centralised structures are discussed.     

Incidence of violence in Turkish schools: A review

The present article deals with the incidence of violence cases inTurkish schools. A review of research based on published research reports andunpublished M.Sc. and Ph.D. dissertations is presented and basic lines of researchare discussed. Special emphasis was placed upon culturally specific issues,besides the culturally determined attitudes of parents and teachers. The need for anationwide system for the prevention of violence and corporal punishment wasemphasized.     

土耳其共产党论资本主义经济危机和国际共产主义运动

资本主义经济危机爆发以后,土耳其共产党积极回应。指出,这不是一场简单的＂金融危机＂,资本主义为应对危机所做出的调整和＂改变＂,其实质是为了掩盖危机爆发的根源,从资产阶级自身利益出发寻求摆脱危机的出路;危机进一步削弱了美国的经济垄断地位,但它在其他领域更加具有扩张性;此次危机发生在一个反对革命的时代,并未促进工人运动的高涨;共产党人的当前任务就是在反对资本主义中激发工人阶级的阶级意识,加强相互之间的沟通与合作。     

Special education in Turkey

The quality and the prevalence of education are the major indicators of the development of a society. It is a kind of human right to every person living in the society to be educated in a sufficient way. The education of the disabled people, a social reality in Turkey, is not sufficiently carried out. This paper aims at the education of the disabled people in Turkey. In order to mention about the education of the disabled people, this paper also mentions about the general characteristics of the disabled. The service of special education has not reached all the disabled, and the disabled and their families are not aware of the importance of the education. Only 90 thousand out of over one million disabled children receive the education. Disabled children continue their training in five groups： the sight impaired, the hearing impaired, the orthopedic impaired, the mentally impaired and children with long-term illness. Raising awareness is very important for all of the Turkish people. So a social education is necessary in order to deal with this problem.