The influence of materialism and evolutionary thought in textbooks during the one-party period

This study examines the effects of materialism and evolutionist thought in primary, secondary and high school textbooks taught in Turkey during the Single Party Period (1923-1950). By analyzing biology, history and religious textbooks, the study reveals how the educational policies and ideological orientations of the period were reflected in the transmission of modern scientific concepts. In biology textbooks, the structure and functioning of living things were generally addressed with a biological materialist approach. The idea of evolution was included under the title of "evolutionary theories", especially in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and the views of Lamarck and Darwin and fossil evidence were mentioned. However, basic mechanisms such as natural selection, genetics and human evolution were either superficially treated or neglected. A decrease in the presentation of the subject of evolution was observed from the mid-1940s onwards. In history textbooks, it was determined that a materialist and evolutionist perspective was more evident. Human history has been presented as a linear progression and a process evolving from the simple to the complex, based on material conditions, environmental factors and technological developments. While human biological evolution was addressed from a Darwinian perspective, especially in the 1930s, this emphasis shifted to socio-cultural and political evolution in the 1940s. A dual approach was seen in textbooks related to religion. While philosophy/ethics books introduced secular, rational and ethical understandings based on individual responsibility (through thinkers such as Bergson, Rauh, Descartes); religious textbooks that entered the curriculum in the late 1940s offered content based on traditional Islamic theology, metaphysical assumptions and religious virtues. As a result, textbooks from the Single Party Period, in line with the ideological priorities and social conditions of the period, reflected materialism and evolutionist thought in different courses and time periods with varying intensity and forms, along with the effort to spread modern science and a secular worldview. This situation demonstrates the complex and multi-layered nature of the project of building a new nation and citizen identity in the field of education.