The hegemonic restructuring of educational policies under the Justice and Development Party in Turkey (2002-2020)

This thesis examines how the Justice and Development Party has utilized the field of education as a strategic domain for ideological transformation in Turkey between 2002 and 2020. Rather than being a collection of fragmented policy reforms, the Justice and Development Party's educational interventions are analyzed as part of a coherent hegemonic project that aims to reconstruct the social and cultural order in line with a religious-conservative worldview. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony and "common sense," and Louis Althusser's concept of ideological state apparatuses, the thesis investigates how education has served not only as a technical tool but as a mechanism of ideological reproduction, consent production, and identity formation.The study employs a critical-historical and discourse-analytical approach, analyzing a wide array of sources, including legal documents, policy texts, curricula, textbooks, and official statements. It focuses particularly on the 2004 curriculum reform and the 2012 4+4+4 education law as key turning points in the education's hegemonic restructuring. The research demonstrates how these reforms have institutionalized a new form of common sense, in which de-secularization and Islamization have been presented as the natural and legitimate values of Turkish society. In doing so, the thesis sheds light on the broader relationship between education, ideology, and power in contemporary Turkey.