Chapter 8: The Values Adopted by Faculties of Education at Universities During the Turkish Transformation

Since 1839, modernization and westernization have been a hot topic in Türkiye, and a great deal of effort has been spent to achieve it. However, this process has frequently been interrupted due to the power shifts between governments with modern or traditional worldviews. Today, Türkiye has been ruled by a conservative government. Especially since 2010, Türkiye has been drifting away from Western democracies and values while traditionalism has been increasingly emphasized. Within this context, the purpose of this chapter was to reveal the values adopted by faculties of education in Türkiye by categorizing them into traditional versus modern values to understand the course of teacher education. Accordingly, the aim, mission, and vision statements of 75 faculties of education in Türkiye were analyzed. The results showed that the number of traditional values was slightly higher than the modern values. These findings can be interpreted as the seeking for balance between the materiality of the West and the spirituality of the East, which has long been observed since the Ottoman period. In this chapter, this argument and the role of education, specifically teacher training, have been discussed in more depth by providing more information about the policies of the government and the current situation in Türkiye.