From Missionary Teacher to Dysfunctional Technician: Teacher Training System in Turkey and Formations of Turkish Modernity

This study deals with the history of teacher training system in modern Turkey starting from mid-19th century to present times. The goal of this study is to describe the historico-discursive formation of the system. I used an analysis of institutional, rhetorical and programme contexts to determine and define discursive phases. The results indicated that teacher training system in Turkey has three overarching discursive phases and three corresponding teacher types; enlightenment-secularization era, the roll-back and conservatism era, and neoliberalization era, corresponding to missionary-teacher, expert-teacher and dysfunctional technician-teacher types, respectively.