Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made significant changes to Turkey’s state-approved school textbooks since taking power in 2003. This report is the fourth undertaken by IMPACT-se into the Turkish curriculum. We have identified a marked deterioration in Turkish textbooks since our last review in 2016, in regards to meeting UNESCO defined standards of peace and tolerance. On the contrary, textbooks have been weaponized in Erdogan’s efforts to Islamize Turkish society and to hark back to a nostalgic age of Turkish domination. The Islamization of the curriculum is a direct attempt to shape future generations to fit in with his grand narrative of an Islamic/pan-Turkish revival.
