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PREFACE
Outcome of a two year endeavour, this report was written in a period when important developments concerning the education system in Turkey are taking place and debates concerning the use of mother tongue in education is growing, especially with regard to the status of the Kurdish language in Turkey. It puts forward concrete policy proposals for Turkey to use Kurdish and all other mother tongues in education.
On the contrary of the mainstream idea that the status of the languages spoken in Turkey would be determined after peace and reconciliation is achieved; we, as DİSA, believe that following a mother tongue-based multilingual education is a very crucial step in the way to achieve the very peace and reconciliation itself. Therefore, we find it very important to come up with concrete suggestions regarding the use of all mother tongues, including Kurdish, in the education in Turkey.
This report analyzes the issue of mother tongue based multilingual education with a critical perspective and comes up with concrete suggestions for the education of Kurdish children taking the social, linguistic, educational and political characteristics and needs of them and their parents into consideration. To this end, four different mother tongue-based multilingual education models are suggested, each of which takes the social and psycholinguistic relationships among languages involved in the models and the variations and differences within and across Kurdish dialects into consideration. Moreover, the heterogeneous sociolinguistic profile of the Kurdish students is discussed with reference to issues including gender, class, beliefs, attitudes and so on. Also, we advocate for a new multilingual educational approach that critically examines the concept of literacy and its teaching in an attempt to prepare the ground for more critical/transformative individuals and societies to raise through education.
Furthermore, this is a pioneering study in many respects, especially in that it encourages us to have a new word to say, create a new discourse, and eventually face our stark realities.
To begin with, there have been some discussions on what kinds of models should be adopted and the pedagogical approaches to be followed for the schooling of Kurdish children. Yet, concrete and detailed multilingual education models, based on the social, linguistic, educational and political conditions of the children and the parents’ demands have not been suggested so far. This report fills that void. Therefore, we believe that a new step is taken with this report.
On saying a new word and creating a new discourse, the first claim of this report is related to the social and psycholinguistic relations among languages, and approaches and views on language learning. Many people from different educational and socio-economic backgrounds might assume that, languages are competing with each other, and speaking more than one language will cause mind confusion and identity crisis, and the societies will fall apart if there are different languages spoken. However, the research and various examples show that languages are complementary rather than competing against each other, and under the appropriate conditions, multilingualism has more advantages than monolingualism, and that the disputes arise from the reaction to the homogenization of language. Moreover, social reconciliation and consensus can be attained more easily in those societies which recognize languages of different groups. Similarly, speaking more than one language does not exclude one or the other but rather facilitates the learning process. In other words, research has proven that bilingual and multilingual individuals can learn additional languages more quickly and easily.
Another point is about the various approaches to education. In some countries such as Turkey, public education is detached from social reality and fails to fulfil citizens’ practical needs. Furthermore, the educational system does not encourage students to question the relationship between minority groups and the state. Thus, the Turkish education system also contributes to the formation of new social hierarchies while also reproducing the current ones. Certainly, Turkey’s current approach to education is not the only approach to education. Education can also be a tool for raising critical/transformative individuals and forming societies. Through such an approach, teachers and schools will able to raise awareness concerning how schools define social realities and how culture, language and history are constructed by power and politics. And certainly there are concrete examples of such approaches with successful outcomes. Consequently, this study also advocates for implementing an approach to education that encourages developing students’ critical consciousness.
Another topic that we follow in line with the same critical perspective is our approach to literacy. Like the case in education, in many countries literacy is perceived as being able to decode and comprehend written language and conduct basic arithmetic equations. However, literacy is also about using full capacity of the human brain apart from the oral and written lingual, intellectual development. Moreover, our approach to literacy plays a key role in raising critical/ transformative individuals and the development of societies.
In the field of education, research tends to overlook the heterogeneity of students. In Turkey, both the education system that serves the interests of the dominant group and the recent arguments favouring the mother-tongue-based education of Kurdish children assume that students are homogenous. This study, on the other hand, claims that the Kurdish children, especially the ones whose mother tongue is Kurmanji, have different characteristics and needs, and thus constitute a heterogeneous group due to their social, lingual, political and gender differences. It is very important to take into consideration differences among children while developing a student entered education system. In here, again we face the fact that we need to have a new word to say on the subject and to adopt a new approach.
This report also develops new insights about the relationship between language and gender. Recently, many campaigns in Turkey have focused on increasing the number of girls attending schools. However, most of these works do not explicitly state which girls they are targeting, thus ignoring the unstated insinuation that these programs target Kurdish girls whose mother tongue is not Turkish. Many individual and organizations criticize such approaches, but they are unable to address how language usage and gender intersect in society. They are also unable to articulate how language acquisition (or lack thereof ) limits boys and girls in different way. This report includes such information. Furthermore, when this report discusses the relationship between languages and education, it also is debating the role of gender in society.
Finally, this report adopts a new approach to sub dialect and dialect differences. Whether it is about the education of prestigious foreign languages, or languages of instruction, many countries have education programs based on a standard dialect. However, the standardization of a language is different from the standardization of an alphabet: a multilingual, multidialectal, and multi sub dialectical education is possible with different sub dialects of the same language when they use a common alphabet. Examples of such a system of education include Norway, Italy and Germany but not limited to them. Similarly, it is also possible to implement education simultaneously in the various dialects of the same language family. The best example of this is the system in the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, where education is provided in both Sorani and Kurmanji dialects. Moreover, textbooks, which are written in these dialects, also include various words and sentences of the other dialect using comparison methods, thus giving students the opportunity to learn both dialects. It is both possible and crucial to have a comparative education given in a similar fashion for Zazaki and Kurmanji in Turkey. Furthermore, while this report offers models that can be used for the education of Kurmanji students, it also suggests programs in which they will be able to learn Zazaki. This work also supports the idea that it is possible to have a multilingual education, which promotes the use of sub dialects of Zazaki and Kurmanji, while refusing the common misconception of having all the educational activities based on one standard dialect or sub dialect.
For all of the reasons stated above, this report should be considered as an important step towards establishing and maintaining legal protection of Kurdish as well as all the other languages spoken in Turkey and promoting their use in education. We hope that this work will aid in establishing a social peace and reconciliation in Turkey while contributing to the struggle for the linguistic rights of the people and children speaking a mother tongue other than Turkish.
M. Şerif Derince
September 2012
Acknowledgments
Many individuals and institutions have greatly contributed to the realization of this report. First of all, we would like to thank all the teachers who participated in the three workshops organized by the Diyarbakir Institute for Political and Social Research (DİSA) for sharing their precious knowledge, experience and time. Many of the subjects mentioned in this report would have never been recognized without their contribution. It was also thanks to them that we were able to learn about the specific conditions and needs of Kurdish students.
Second, we would like to express sincere gratitude to Dr. Susan Malone and Dr. Carol Benson. They have generously shared their knowledge and experience of advocating for mother-tongue-based multilingualism and actively participating in the preparation and implementation of various mother-tongue-based multilingual education programs in many countries. Their expertise played a crucial role in forming the models presented in this report.
We also would like to thank Mamoste Adil Qazî from Amed Kurdi-Der, Müge Ayan Ceyhan from Istanbul Bilgi University’s Sociology and Education Studies Unit (SEÇBİR) and Müjgan Şahin from Eğitim-Sen (Education and Science Worker’s Union) and Netice Altun for expressing their opinions, suggestions and critics on a draft of this report during an event where it was shared with the public. Thanks to their contribution, we had a chance to correct many missing or unclear points. We also would like to thank the audience who participated in the same event and shared their opinions.
For preparing the infrastructure of this report and organizing the teachers’ workshop, we want to thank DİSA employees Dilan Bozgan, Murat Aba, and Atalay Göçer. Without them, the workshops would not have taken place, nor proceeded so smoothly. We also would like to thank all of DİSA’s members, especially Şemsa Özar, who shared their opinions in every phase of the program “Advocacy for Kurdish Language in Education.” Additional gratitude goes to Nesrin Uçarlar for reading and editing this report’s first draft and to Beril Eyüboğlu for reading the final version of this report thoroughly and making the necessary corrections in Turkish.
Lastly, we would like to thank the Embassy of the Netherlands for its generous support. Without financial aid from the Embassy, this report would not have been possible.
Introduction
There has been a huge struggle going on for years in order to include the Kurdish language in the education system in Turkey. An important part of this struggle focused on the demand for mother-tongue-based education. However, a holistic mother-tongue-based education model has yet to be suggested for Turkey. Current discussions generally focus on the different models implemented in various countries.1 Consequently, there is not sufficient public discussion regarding mother-tongue-based education models that can be used in the schooling of Kurdish students living in Turkey. The most important impediment to this is that conditions within Turkey have not been analyzed sufficiently and thus there is not enough knowledge to discuss the issue further. For the last few years, campaigns by Kurdish organizations, changes in Turkish and international conjuncture, and an increasing number of films and publications on the subject expressing the need for mother tongue based education to various platforms aided in increasing the visibility of the Kurdish language. We believe that it would be most efficient at this stage to continue the discussion based on the analysis of concrete education models. By going forward using concrete models, we assume that the demands will be expressed in a more assertive way and a more fruitful discussion will take place regarding the implementation of these models.
As Carol Benson points out, it is important to understand experiences of the groups that are subject to discrimination in order to implement an education system that will be in their favour. Any amendment done in the education system without understanding their experiences will continue to reproduce inequalities and limit the access to education to a certain group.2 For this reason, while suggesting mother-tongue-based education models to be implemented in Turkey, it is crucial to take into consideration the sociolinguistic situation of the students whose mother tongue is not Turkish.
In this respect, this report is prepared in order to analyze the different needs and characteristics of Kurdish student living in Turkey and to develop mother-tongue-based multilingual education models that can be used for their schooling.
The report consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, the heterogeneity of Kurdish students is analyzed in the light of the information received from Scar of Tongue3 and the teachers’ workshop conducted by DİSA. The second chapter is about the models of education systems throughout the world, types of literacy, teacher training programs on linguistic and cultural differences, ...
1 1st and 2nd Symposium on Mother-Tongue was held by Eğitim-Sen and the works of Education Reform Initiative (ERG) on multilingualism and education are the pioneering studies on this subject. In addition, mother tongue based education models from various countries were discussed during the conferences, panels, and activities held by the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul, Ankara Kurd-Der, Amed Kurdi-Der and many similar Kurdish organizations. These studies unquestionably contributed a lot to the existing knowledge and awareness on the subject.
2 Benson, Carol (2005), Girls, Educational Equity and Mother Tongue-Based Teaching, UNESCO, Bangkok.
3 Coşkun, Vahap; Derince, M. Şerif and Uçarlar, Nesrin (2010), Scar of Tongue: Consequences of the Ban on the Use of Mother Tongue in Education and Experiences of Kurdish Students in Turkey. DİSA, Diyarbakır. For the research please see:
http://www.disa.org.tr/files/documents/scaroftongue.pdf.
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