History education within cultural policies of the republican era; comparison of one-party regime and multi-party system (1923-1960)

Abstract

The most effective elements upon policies that were conducted in fields of education and culture during the period of Ataturk were nationalism, secularism and westernism. The field of history was also shaped in this direction as a part of culture and the history education was arranged accordingly. During the period of Inonu, the humanist movement of thought affected the culture policies and being different from the period of Ataturk, humanism started to be effective in history courses, alongside of the nationalism, which was taught predominantly. The process of multi-party life started in Turkey within the new world order as from 1945 and the Democratic Party, which was established as the opposition party in 1946, came to power as a result of the elections in 1950. During the period of the Democratic Party, the studies on the Ottoman History increased. Some of the historians of this period considered the historiography of the one-party regime romantic and dreamer, and they defended the necessity of teaching the historical subjects with a scientific method and critical aspect. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.