Teachers' Perception of the National Ideology of Kemalism and Its Effects on Kurdish Pupils

This paper is based on an empirical study examining Turkish and Kurdish teachers' perception of the national ideology of Kemalism and its effects on Kurdish pupils. A semi-structured interview was conducted with 30 teachers working in the east/southeast provinces of Turkey, which are predominantly inhabited by Kurds. The findings revealed that the Kemalist ideology has serious negative effects on Kurdish pupils, as it directly excludes and alienates the Kurdish identity. This paper also showed that the dominance of Kemalism in education seems to trigger a lot of other issues existing in society such as the exclusion of non-Turks and polarisation.