Modernization, nationalization, globalization: Turkish higher education and academics with a perspective on the problem of identity

This study explores the socio-historical conditions of higher education institutions and the production of academic knowledge in Turkey, with a specific interest on the problem of identity. First, a brief inquiry into the past is attempted in the way of analysing how such problem manifests itself throughout the transformations of higher education institutions during modernization and nationalization processes. Then, a more specific attention is directed towards the post-1980 period when higher education is to adapt itself in accordance with the recent globalizing tendencies. The study argues that these tendencies can be understood in terms of an international division of academic labour which also speaks for an internal division in Turkey. It is also claimed that the problem of identity plays a crucial role in all these processes where such dualities as West–East, global/universal-local, and material-cultural operate in distinctive ways.