Teaching "Europe" in Turkey: An Analysis of Secondary History Textbooks, 1956--2005

School history textbooks play an important role in teaching students about their national identity. Historical narratives presented in the textbooks incorporate conceptions of who people are and how they are linked to particular locations. However, these narratives are never static. They are constantly changing to take into account shifting interpretations of how the "nation" is affected by politics, cultural, social changes, economic circumstances and the nation's relationships to the world at large. This thesis explores these changes in the portrayal of "Europe" in history textbooks of 1956-58, 1975-78, 1996 and 2005 as a way of demonstrating the changing conceptions of Turkey's official self-understandings as represented in these textbooks.