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Knowing the factors affecting fear of large carnivores is important for wildlife management and conservation. In this regard, the effect of worldviews of human-wildlife and human-nature relationships on the fear of large carnivores needs to be investigated in different cultures. In this study, the influence of wildlife value orientations (WVOs), connectedness with nature, religiosity, fear of dogs, and gender on the fear of wolves and wild boars were examined. Quantitative research was conducted via a questionnaire on a convenience sample of 656 university students from state universities in various regions of Turkey. Domination orientation did not influence the fear of either animal. Mutualism negatively influenced the fear of wolves but did not significantly influence the fear of wild boar. Connectedness to nature is related negatively to the fear of both animals. More religious students feared wild boars more. Female students had a greater fear of both animals than male students. In addition, students with a fear of dogs had a greater fear of both animals. The relationship between worldviews and fear of large carnivores can vary across different species and needs to be investigated in different cultures

This study aims at determining the science concepts and subjects used in the "religion courses" taught in secondary schools and the contribution of science to religion courses, which is not a widely studied topic in the relevant literature. Like qualitative research, this study is a multiple case study. The data were collected using a semi-structured interview with five Muslim religion teachers working in an eastern city of Turkey. The interview data were analyzed using the basic descriptive and content analysis methods. The findings showed that religion teachers benefit from the concepts and subjects of science in their courses; using life sciences in their religion courses had a positive impact in teaching religious subjects better to the students; the use of the concepts of life sciences in religion courses enabled students to perceive the subject better; students enjoyed the use of science concepts in religion courses and also students asked questions to their teachers about many subjects of life sciences. Religion teachers expressed that they did not feel competent enough in the life sciences. Some recommendations, such as organizing in-service training have been made for religion teachers to feel competent enough in life sciences.

Students of Turkish descent suffer various forms of discrimination in education in Flanders (the northern part of Belgium). Nevertheless, few studies have documented how these discrimination experiences are situated within structures of ethnic inequality in education. Adopting a critical race theory approach, experiences of Turkish Belgian university students were analysed to expose deficit assumptions towards ethnic minorities and push against inequity in education. The accounts of students show the exclusionary treatment they were exposed to despite the dominating discourses of colorblindness in education. Students' experiences with peers highlight the pervasiveness of racism that targeted ethnic minority students based on their ethnic and social class background. Lack of minority representation, ubiquitous microaggressions, and exclusionary curriculum shape students' experiences at university context and affirm White normativity. These findings highlight the urgency of challenging against systems and structures of racism in education. The implications for research and practice are detailed in the concluding section.

This article argues for the significance of biographical theory in research on raciolinguistic ideologies in education. It accounts for biographies as a basis for the study of the ways in which students conceive the languages, social spaces and power relations which shape processes of inclusion and exclusion. Taking anti-Muslim discourses in Austria as a point of departure, this article introduces raciolinguistics as a way to theorize the co-naturalization of language and race in education. It then delineates the use of biographies to contextualize understandings of the significance of language across the life course. In the empirical part, I analyze the biographical narration of a university student who wears a headscarf. I focus on her experiences with the specific relationship between anti-Muslim racism and language in different stages of her life. The final part of the article discusses how biographical research can contribute to a broader understanding of raciolinguistic power relations in education.

This study explores a group of social studies teachers' conceptions of citizenship by taking into consideration the country's increasingly authoritarian political culture. It offers an analysis of semi-structured interviews carried out with 20 teachers working at state middle schools in a relatively secular city. The study found that the majority of the teachers are subscribed to a non-democratic conception of citizenship that prioritizes an uncritical loyalty to the nation, inculcates passive compliance, relies on a pro-Muslim notion of human rights, and makes little room for political issues discussion. Despite that, some teachers seem to develop oppositional discourses and seek ways to claim their agencies. The study concludes that the authoritarian Islamic nationalism in power has intensified the ethno-religiously nationalist, statist, and duty-centric aspects of citizenship education (CE). Some teachers' explicit emphasis on pro-Islamic and anti-western discourses and almost all teachers' explicit concern to stay away from politics emerge as novel characteristics that are consistent with the dictates of Turkey's authoritarian regime. It seems authoritarian populist nationalism redresses citizenship as an exclusionary notion grounded in race, ethnicity, religion, and civilizational claims. Insights from this research may help the advocates keep CE supportive of democratic values under authoritarian conditions.

The aim of the study evaluates cultural sensitivity in healthcare services among senior nursing students to patients with different cultural backgrounds. The study had a one-group pre-posttest model descriptive study design. Thirty-four nursing students taking the courses Emergency Care and Diabetes were included into the study. Standardized patients were used as a simulation technique. The difference between intercultural sensitivity scores before the simulation and those after the simulation was not statistically significant (p>0.05). Even though there were no differences between intercultural sensitivity scores before the simulation and the scores after the simulation, simulation based education is an effective teaching method in enhancement of cultural sensitivity.

Public debates in the Netherlands assume there is an inherent tension between the traditional task of the imam and his tasks in the secularized Dutch society. Studies of the effect of age and generation on religiosity report that intense religious changes are taking place among second-generation migrants. But the direction of this change is interpreted differently by scholars. A majority of scholars indicate that second-generation migrants consider themselves more 'Muslim' and are more concerned about the traditional sources of religious authority. Other studies report that there is an ongoing pattern of secularization among Muslims in Europe and that second-generation migrants consider themselves less concerned about the traditional and popular sources of religious leadership and authority. In relation to the findings of my PhD study, in this contribution, I elaborate on several factors to shed some light on the possible reasons behind these different findings. These factors are, in turn, the lack of language skills and knowledge of the local culture, the politization of Diyanet's institutional culture, and the secularization of young immigrant identity. While discussing these factors, I evaluated their role in the formation of the public image of imams. The results indicate that the image of the imam in Dutch-Turkish Muslim communities is not uniform. On the one hand, there are the educated interviewees and spiritually oriented respondents, who generally criticize the ignorance of most imams and the irrelevance of their sermons to young Muslims in Europe. On the other hand, there are the less educated respondents and the respondents who strongly experience popular religiosity, who do not question the authority of imams. The image of the imam in the minds of the majority of Dutch-Turkish Muslims is positive and retains its authority.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how theist (Muslim) pre-service science teachers reconcile their individual ontologies, which stem from their worldviews, with premises of modern science. 23 pre-service science teachers (10 males and 13 females, ages ranged from 19 to 23) were selected by purposeful sampling. Data sources included open-ended questions and semi-structured follow-up interviews. The qualitative analysis of data revealed that theist participants believing in a created Nature which is being lawful and understandable but also open to supernatural intervention diverged in their perspectives about the ontological premises that scientists must have and presupposed theism, theism/naturalism or just naturalism for doing science. They all asserted the physical universe as the boundary for science and evaluated the possibility of the scientific investigation of miracles and jinn within that boundary with the criterion of being able to obtain empirical data. They did not perceive any incompatibility between science and Islam and proposed methodological naturalism for scientific practice in order to overcome potential conflicts.

This article is based on the premise that the constructed image of the national self is a fundamental criterion shaping the conceptions of history teaching in the Turkish educational system. In this regard, I argue that examining how particular ethno-religious groups are discursively positioned in relation to the idealised self-image can reveal whether and how history textbooks can be revised. Having described the historical and political context for the only curriculum revision occurred in 2013 concerning a non-Muslim community, the Assyrians, the article demonstrates that specific discursive strategies are used to position the Assyrian community in relation to the favourable national self-image, rather than a fixed categorization for non-Muslim communities. Adopting the methodological framework of critical discourse analysis, the author examines the portrayal of the Assyrian community in the secondary school Turkish history textbooks taught over the last three decades and identifies how the topoi of justice and tolerance, as well as allegiance and betrayal allow a particular group to be a member of the larger body of 'acceptable citizens.'

Islam with all aspects which affects the soul, heart, body, and the every section of your daily life is the last divine religion. Our religion commands to protect our mental and physical health. So it set many orders and recommendations and rules for protection and develop our body. In this study, it was aimed to examine the place of sport in the light of Qur'an, hadith and opinions of the Muslim scholar in Islam and data were obtained by literature review. Islam promotes some physical education activities due to having balanced, strengthen, healthy of body without delay Worship life. Our prophet has confirmed some useful activities such as swimming, shooting, wrestling into his age. In this regard, he has shown a way to their Ummah.

The Hizmet Movement a.k.a. Gulen Movement is a collective initiative of a group of people from Turkey following altruistic ideals. Although it is rooted in Islam and the Sufi tradition, it appeals to all backgrounds via its secular schools and interfaith dialogue outreach. In the U.S., the movement runs educational institutions, interfaith dialogue centers, and charities, and has grown significantly since the start of the new millennium. The academic excellence, college admission rates, and medals won at local and international science and math competitions helped Hizmet Movement schools gain recognition and appreciation in the more than 100 countries where they operate. However, recent political unrest and, as a result, anti-democratic treatment of Hizmet participants in Turkey has taken a toll on this success and has transformed the movement into a diaspora. This paper serves as an introduction to Hizmet Movement's history, its perceptions in the U.S. and in Turkey, and the educational philosophies of its educators in a post-911 and post-15 July world. The focus on events is between 1960 to present.

Women continue to be underrepresented in physics in the United States. This is while many Muslim majority (MM) countries have a high representation of women in undergraduate and graduate physics programs. While there is a growing awareness of this trend, little is being done to understand why and how this trend has manifested and how it can be used to inform broadening the participation of women in physics in the U.S. To better understand how cultural experiences can influence the pursuit of physics, this study examines the lived experiences of female physics faculty members in the U.S. who came from MM countries. The study draws on seven phenomenological interviews focusing on how cultural experiences shaped participants' gender and physics identities. The results reveal several possible hypotheses on differences and similarities in how physics and gender identities intersect in MM countries as opposed to what has been found in the West. In particular, expressions of femininity in MM countries can have a more constructive intersection with expressions of physics identity in ways that promote participation and persistence.

In the wake of the U.S. government's executive orders restricting travel from six Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) in January 2017, we collected data from four focus groups consisting of international doctoral students aiming to provide insight on the following research question: "How do international doctoral students make sense of the U.S. political climate on their lived experiences?" This article contributes to the literature by discussing a timely issue concerning international students in the United States and points out that the 2017 travel ban has affected not only international doctoral students from those banned countries but has also alarmed students from other countries, who described the climate as stressful, confusing, and hostile. Several students changed their travel plans for conferences or family visits being worried that they might not be able to reenter the United States. Other students feared the immigration rules might suddenly change and affect their visa status. Students also expressed their concerns in regard to job prospects after graduation. This article derives from a larger qualitative study exploring the experiences of international doctoral students in the U.S. academic and cultural settings.

Secularism as central to society and human life may bring undesired negative consequences in Muslim societies. Increasing social problems among juveniles in Turkey raised questions regarding the right personality development and education of young people. In extending further analysis, we conducted semi-structured interview with experts to assess the level of Turkish personality and impact of Said Nursi, who is a very influential Islamic scholar in Turkish society and to the Islamic movement in general. This study implies that education integrated with Islamic belief and practice will be more influential to educate Turkish Muslims, rather than secular based teaching. This result will be a guideline for educationists and counselors. In future study, developing a personality scale integrated with belief and practice will be beneficial to Muslim communities.

The current study aimed to identify the views of students from the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Theology from the University of Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam regarding their comprehension and acceptance of the theory of evolution. A survey model was used involving a quantitative research design. The working group of the study was composed of 425 university students attending a state university in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey. Gender, faculty, department, year and political views of the teacher candidates were used as independent variables of the study. According to the findings obtained from the study, the tendency to accept evolution was higher among first year female students from the science department of the Faculty of Education compared to male students in the Faculty of Theology. This tendency was also higher among students with leftist ideas compared to students with other political views. Significant differences in various dimensions were also observed. It was found that university students' acceptance of the theory of evolution was low. This view was as expected mainly due to the students living in a Muslim country.

No matter what century we live in, even though the tools we use change from age to age, man is not a creature who can be considered or understood without the concept of values. Although we have different religions, languages, races and cultures, the personality of man is always constructed through values. Values are factors that directly influences human life and society in a positive or negative way. This study suggests that values education aimed at teaching individuals certain values is not sufficiently practiced by families in Turkey. In order to address the problem, this study aimed to increase the awareness of family members regarding values and help them turn values into behavior in everyday life. To this end, a 24-month "values education program" involving a set of activities was carried out. Every month, a specific value was chosen taking into account the needs of family members and "value booklets" were prepared using four sub-dimensions of the chosen value. 10 families participated in the program and the data was collected from 25 individuals. The resulting data was subjected to content analysis. 3 main themes were found to be important in the light of the data: moral development, development of communication skills, and religiousness. These themes were thought to be beneficial in terms of understanding the effectiveness and importance of family members' internalizing values and turning them into behavior in everyday life.

This study aims to investigate the relation between participation in religious activities and the subjective wellbeing of high school students. The study group involves 196 participants, 99 female and 97 male; all of the participants were adolescents attending high school in Eskisehir, Turkey, their ages varying from 14 to 16. The measurement scales used in this study included: Satisfaction with Life, Positive-Negative Affect, and Adolescents' Subjective Well-being Increasing Strategies. The Pearson correlation technique and content analysis method were employed. Though in low levels, quantitative findings show a significant relation between life satisfaction, positive affection, and participation in religious activities. However, no such significant relation could be found for negative affection and participation in religious activities. Qualitative findings show high school students have a better subjective well-being when involved in religious activities, ranging from praying alone to going to mosque on holy days, which helps them discharge religious duties, meets the need for building intimacy with someone, gives them sense of security, instills hope in them, fosters good manners in them, makes them feel rewarded, and helps them cope with stress.

Various religious groups impose strict restrictions on their members marrying someone outside their faith, especially when it comes to Muslims marrying members of other religions. However, travelling in pursuit of higher education and employment has made it possible for people marry to outside their religious affiliation regardless of religious dogma and teachings. Since the 1970s, Turks have been migrating to the UK for various reasons such as job opportunities, and political conflicts happening in their homeland. The increasing number of marriages outside of the Turkish Muslim group has made it necessary to focus on the religious and ethnic identity formation of children in interfaith marriages of couples who are Turkish Muslims and non-Muslims and have at least one child between the ages of five and twenty. This case study examines responses of 32 couples and 15 children collected through questionnaire forms and interviews. The findings demonstrate that gender, religious and ethnic identity, level of religiosity, and the dominant culture have influenced parents' identity and that of their children. While the parents try to minimise their differences by focusing on moral values, most children develop double consciousness, which can lead to hyphenated identity or syncretism.

This article throws light upon the history of the national-progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, which is called Jadidism. The history of Jadidism and its evolution from enlightenment to a powerful political movement can be retraced in it. Jadidism became an alternative form of the intellectual renewal of Muslim society. The beginning of the movement was connected with the introduction of the phonetics, so called "usul-i jadid", method of teaching reading and writing instead of letter and syllabic one in maktabs and madrasas, that is a new method. The Jadids criticized religious fanaticism, required the substitution of obsolete religious schools for national secular ones, advocated the development of science and culture, supported the publishing of newspapers in the native language, the opening of cultural and educational establishments, which favoured the consolidation of the democratic forces of the society. From the very beginning the Jadids were aimed to the reform of the traditional system of education of Muslim religious school, establishing new-method schools, publishing, theatre, social, and political and cultural institutions, which, under their influence, were turning into a powerful ideological weapon in the struggle against economical, moral, and political backwardness of the peoples of Turkestan more and more. They were eager to study the experience and progress of the other people of the world, especially the best practices of the Muslim reformers of the Crimea, the Volga Region, the Transcaucasia, Turkey, and Iran, who had already became aware of the progressive social and political, spiritual and cultural life of Europe. The main merit of the Jadids of Turkestan consists in the fact that they were the first to ground political arguments of the national liberation movement against Russian colonialism. The national elite of Turkestan discredited the "legitimacy" of the colonial form of government, and later it served as the basis of a powerful political movement.

This study focuses on the cultural characteristics of Ahiska Turks in Wheaton, Illinois in the United States. By trying to understand the culture of the participants, I sought to shed light on how the Ahiska Turks managed to cope with the hardship they experienced and yet preserved their ethnic identities. In this multicase study, I interviewed six male Ahiska Turks. As a result of my analyses, eight themes emerged: family, religion (i.e., Islam), language (i.e., Turkish), communal life, endogamy, authoritarianism, oppression against the preservation of culture and identity, and education for upward mobility. The Ahiska Turks' agrarian way of life, the preservation of their language, and their preference of integration to the larger society for acculturation make them who they are today.

Global increases in mental illness in children and youth have precipitated a wide range of therapies to address this concern. An alternative to this reactive approach is based on models of mental wellness that enhance children's and youths' perceptions of well-being and health. The current project examined the effects of a universal animal-assisted activity (AAA) program on a group of minority students who attended a boarding school in Germany. The intent of the current study was to determine whether the duration and types of AAA the students experienced were associated with higher levels of perceived mental well-being. Short-term gains in calmness were demonstrated under some AAA conditions, and long-term gains in well-being resulted from minority children's participation in rabbit club.

This article provides an overview of the discourses on Dutch mosque education. Based on a review of the scholarly debates on mosque education in West, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles containing references to mosque education between 2010 and 2016 (N = 45). The data are sampled from the five largest Dutch newspapers. Most of the themes emerging from the literature are also reflected in the discourses on mosque education in the press. In line with other media analysis on representation of Muslims, the portrayal of mosque education in the Dutch press is also mainly negative. The key issues in the press portrayals included use of corporal punishment, inadequate training of imams, reinforcement of conservative gender norms, intensification of social segregation, links with religious extremism and local opposition to mosques. Fewer references concern the positive influence of mosque education on cognitive skills and identity development of the Muslim children.

The objective of the present study was to examine how Atheist, Christian, and Muslim elite athletes motivate themselves before competitions. Using a semi-structured format qualitative design, seventeen elite male volleyball players were interviewed. For Muslim athletes, the focus was on "Praying" with the highest frequency, while for Christian athletes the "Visualization" had the highest frequency. For Atheist athletes, "Winning the Game" was the highest frequency. Muslim, Christian, and Atheist athletes had similar motivation focus point as; "Want to Do the Best". When compared between the Muslim and Christian athletes, "Stay Alone" and "Want to Do the Best" were common motivation styles. The prefered to stay alone for reasons such as; suppress excitement, imagine, and relaxing. There were no similar expression between Muslim and Atheist athletes. "Desire to Win" and "Listen to Music" were common expressions for Christian and Atheist athletes.

This paper examines how the religious education of Turkish children in the "old letters" became an area of everyday contestation between the state and families and communities in the late 1920s and 1930s. Since children were seen as the nation's future, state authorities were adamant about teaching the new generation the new alphabet and were equally interested in preventing them from learning the old alphabet. While schools began using the new Turkish alphabet in the 1928-1929 academic year, the informal neighbourhood Qur'an courses held in mosques and private homes became a fiercely contested site between a state determined to socialise children into secular nationhood (partly) by preventing them from learning the Arabic letters, and families and imams who were committed to giving children religious education (necessitating the study of the Arabic alphabet so the Qur'an could be read in its original Arabic). Combining primary sources from previously untapped Ministry of the Interior documents concerning the monitoring in Anatolian towns of these informal courses with insights from the subaltern school on everyday forms of resistance, this article sheds light on a dimension of the 1928 alphabet reform that ties together questions of alphabet change, national and religious identities, education, and childhood.

The "Gülen Movement," a global network and religious community revolving the Turkish Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, has become a topic of political discourses in worldwide media since the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. Earlier, it was particularly known for its worldwide education activities. The article discusses first results of a reconstructive analysis of practices and biographies in a context of a weekly religious sohbet (conversation circle) for male university students within the DFG-financed project "Pedagogy of the 'Gülen Movement'" (2016-2019). The Islamic culture of education inside the sohbet can be understood in the context of ongoing educational inequalities of Turkish-Muslim students in the German migration-society. Against this background, in Germany, "Gülen Movement's" idea of education "hizmet" comes along with certain religious practices and subjectifications, which aim to enable young Turkish Muslims taking a recognised standing in society.

The aim of this article is to examine the Imam-Hatip schools and their basic features, the characteristic model of Islamic education in Turkey that was proposed as an alternative model for other Muslim countries during their "madrasa" reform movements in the aftermath of the September 11 events in the USA. In the continuation of the "madrasa" tradition during the Saljuki period under state supervision, along with the modernisation efforts in education since the late Ottoman period, these schools have been revitalised and adapted to the contemporary conditions of educational institutions. At the foundation of these schools, there lay a notion of reconciliation between the "traditional" and "modern". Throughout the years of the Turkish Republic, these schools have constantly become a controversial issue in terms of their number, structure, and student and alumni profiles. Especially after the opening process of the Turkish people and Turkish foreign policies to the world, the issue has become an international one since the 1980s. After the events of 11 September 2001, these schools were offered as an alternative model for "madrasas" in Muslim countries and therefore drew international attention to themselves.

Religious diversity in schools is a growing interest among educational researchers. This qualitative case study examines how 15 Turkish-Muslim children in elementary and middle school negotiated their religious identities as they responded to various experiences in American schools and in their communities. Unlike some earlier studies that highlighted cultural conflict as a theme in Muslim adolescents' relationship with schools in the United States, this study is based on a framework that illustrates the voices and agency of young children, and utilizes data from interviews, participant observations and cultural artifacts. Findings demonstrate the ways parents and children mediated challenges their religious identity posed by choosing strategies that made their religious identities invisible, or by finding innovative ways to negotiate their identity and religious practices. Children who participated in the study did not view American identities in conflict with their Muslim identities. Learning about the experiences of immigrant parents and children may provide teachers with insight for creating educational experiences that are responsive to the needs of these communities. This knowledge base can also assist teachers in better responding to biases about Muslims, which might negatively influence children's identity construction and academic and social achievement.

This qualitative study examines the educational and cultural experiences of 12 covered female students attending Turkish state universities in the academic year 2014-2015 and compares how they engage both academically and culturally on university campuses after the lifting of the headscarf ban. Findings indicate that covered students seem to attend academic and extra-curricular activities and use campus facilities but socialise mostly among themselves and feel a sense of tension as a result of the disturbing remarks, looks, and comments of other students. Although the results hint at a healthier campus climate compared to the climate during the time of the headscarf ban, the socialisation patterns of these women imply that students on campuses are together but separate. Another implication of the study is the emergence of a new version of the ban, an informal ban, as a result of the behaviour and attitude of others, which might potentially harm the university experiences of students.

In this article, we report on an ethnographic study of figured worlds of resettlement and identities that Muslim refugee youth from the Russian Federation coconstructed in an urban school at the Southwestern U.S. border. In the school, multiple cultural-historical discourses came together within a global context: refugee families, a global Islamic movement, and deficit-oriented educational ideologies. Three empirically derived themes emerged: Glocal adaptation, multiple literacies, and sticking together. The overall impact of this study derives from two aspects of the analysis: The cultural-historical analysis of refugee resettlement and the hybrid identities of refugee students.

This empirical research analyses an understudied population, Turkish immigrant youths' educational experiences of inclusion/exclusion in Vancouver. My information was gathered from in-depth interviews and participant observation with the first- and second-generation, Muslim and non-religious female and male Turkish immigrant youth from working and middle-class families. The findings of this study indicate that teachers' racism, linguicism and general Islamophobia are the factors of discrimination against Turkish immigrant youth in the education market. The findings suggest that cultural background, immigration status, class and religious affiliation are significant elements in students' relations to the school culture and their educational experiences of inclusion/exclusion in Canadian schools.

A practice-based dialectic theory of identity was used in this study to explore the cultural-historical context of an urban charter school in which a group of newly arrived Muslim Turk refugee students' academic identities were formed. The school, located in the Southwestern United States, was founded by a global Islamist movement. Ethnographic methods were employed over a nine-month period of fieldwork. Findings suggest the demands and consequences of claiming competent learner identities were costly when the refugee students struggled to participate in multiple cultural worlds. The refugee students were sorted into generic institutional identities such as English Language Learners that came with negative social implications and resulted in exclusion of the students from general education classrooms. Over time, the refugee students became closer to special education identification.

The purpose of this case study is to analyze a Turkish Student Association's (TSA) extracurricular activities involving interfaith dialog with respect to their contributions to students' academic and social development in a predominantly white, Catholic, liberal arts college located in the Northeastern United States. The study aims to explain how such activities are important for students' academic and social development as well as the development of their perception of interfaith dialog. The study focuses on four major interfaith dialog activities organized by TSA: (1) lecture, (2) exhibition, (3) interfaith dialogue dinner and (4) educational local trip.

The purpose of the present study was to explore through qualitative methodology the practice of visiting shrines, a religious practice indigenous to Turkish Muslims, and its potential mental health benefits. Thirteen individuals were interviewed at two shrines in Istanbul, Turkey. The researchers focused on visitors' presenting issues, beliefs regarding the practice, the mental health benefits of the visit, and the behaviors that the visitors engaged in during their visit. The data were analyzed using the Consensual Qualitative Research method. Five domains emerged from the data: (i) "degree of religiosity and duties," (ii) "knowledge and beliefs about shrines," (iii) "purpose of visits," (iv) "activities during the visit," and (v) "experience and impact of the visit." The findings were discussed based on the mental health benefits of visiting shrines and the counseling and cultural implications.

The present research aims to determine whether or not pre-service science teachers in Turkey are resistant to learning about the theory of evolution (TOE), and to understand the reasons for their acceptance or rejection of this theory. Following an intervention process, essay documents were collected from each participant ("N" = 113) and analysed using typological techniques. Then, the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) survey was employed ("N" = 93). Finally, an interview was conducted ("N" = 6) and the data were analysed in the frame work of inductive analysis techniques. According to the essay document analysis, almost all participants had neither conceptual knowledge of the TOE nor any scientific argumentation ability in the context of Toulmin's Argument Pattern (TAP). Participants who did not believe in the TOE mostly used Islamic rhetoric as a basis for their arguments rather than a scientific point of view. The MATE survey results indicated that participants' own ideological perspective was the only determinant factor which was statistically significant (p < 0.01). Finally, the responses to the interview questions revealed that participants tended to rely on rote-learning rather than inquiry-based science education and that attitudes to TOE were influenced by inter-related social, political and religious pressures.

An important part of making philosophy as a discipline gender equal is to ensure that female authors are not simply wiped out of the history of philosophy. This has implications for teaching as well as research. In this context, I reflect on my experience of teaching a text by medieval philosopher Christine de Pizan as part of an introductory history of philosophy course taught to Turkish students in law, political science, and international relations. I describe the challenges I encountered, the ways in which I dealt with them, and draw some conclusions based on my observations and feedback obtained at the end of the course.

Using quantile regression analyses, this study examines gender gaps in mathematics, science, and reading in Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Jordan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Qatar, Tunisia, and Turkey among 15-year-old students. The analyses show that girls in Azerbaijan achieve as well as boys in mathematics and science and overachieve in reading. In Jordan, girls achieve as well as boys in all subjects. In Qatar and Turkey, girls underachieve in mathematics, achieve as well as boys in science and overachieve in reading. In Indonesia, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tunisia, girls underachieve in mathematics and science but overachieve in reading. On the basis of the analyses, two generalizations can be made. First, key country-level economic and social characteristics appear unrelated to achievement gender gaps. Second, the overachievement of girls in reading and underachievement in mathematics and science are similar to findings from non-Muslim industrialized countries.

The aim of this article is to explore the perceptions and attitudes of Turkish university students about to embark on a European exchange trip. This qualitative study sheds light on their hopes and fears about travelling to and living for a period of three months in a western country. The article shows how participants shared common aspirations for their trip to be self-developmental and culturally educational. However, it also reveals a high degree of trepidation about their immersion, as Muslim students, in a country in the developed western world. This study thereby makes an important contribution to the international education literature in its identification of concern in students resulting from the current tension between Islam and the west and from perceived discrimination over economic status. The important link between macro forces and the micro experience is revealed.

Turkish religious education's focus on religion from a social science and prescriptive Islamic perspective faces challenges today. This article presents a new model and approach that assists students in exploring their beliefs and values, those of others, and their Islamic heritage from an interdisciplinary worldview perspective. (Contains 2 figures.)

In a significant 1925 essay, "Western Education in Moslem Lands", Paul Monroe addressed the emerging cultural and political forces faced by American educators in the Middle East. Monroe was widely recognised at the time as editor of the Cyclopedia of Education and director of the International Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University. During the period between the wars, he made the Middle East a major focus of practical activity as adviser to the Near East Relief and surveyor of educational conditions (1930), director of an advisory commission to King Faisal of Iraq (1932), and president of Robert College in Istanbul (1933-1935). This article analyses the themes presented in Monroe's essay and explores how those ideas evolved when implemented in educational projects in the region. Pointing to an older missionary relationship between Western education and the semi-colonial relatively powerless Middle East, Monroe argued that conditions were changing and proposed a redefinition of the American educator's role. In his work in Iraq and Turkey and the Near East, Monroe developed a conception that American education could provide a resource to the Middle East which the nations themselves could evaluate and draw upon as needed, and he learned the difficulties in putting such ideas into practice. (Contains 50 footnotes.)

The study examined the relationship between the defensive versus existential religious orientation and mortality salience hypothesis in a country where the predominant type of religion is Islam. It was predicted that the mortality reactions of participants would not differ in accordance with their religious orientations within a Muslim sample. The dependent variable tested in the study was conservatism and it was expected that within the Muslim sample both defensively and existentially oriented participants would react to mortality salience manipulation. The defensive participants became more conservative in the mortality salient condition as opposed to failure salience and TV salience conditions. However, contrary to the authors' hypothesis, existential participants did not react to mortality salience manipulation. The results were discussed in accordance with the self-relevance of the conservatism variable, which is the dependent variable of the study. Research implications and suggestions for future studies were also provided. (Contains 2 tables.)

Education can cease to be a showcase for political projects and start serving women's lives only when the agency of women in their own education is acknowledged. In this paper I have addressed issues concerning harem education to emphasise that possible solutions to issues of girls' education require an awareness concerning the history of girls' education in different geographies. In this article, this agency is pursued in the homosocial production of knowledge in the harem, which is an exoticised space. Questioning the limitations and benefits of the concept of the harem is especially important in understanding processes such as the accommodation of public practices of education in women's homes. Using Foucault's concept of heterotopia, the harem is contextualised to shed light upon its liberating and dominating aspects, as a sphere where public and private practices of education converge. (Contains 14 notes.)

The purpose of this article is to discuss the ways in which the social, political and cultural foundation of the headscarf as a symbol affects the nature and practice of educational life. It will examine the ways in which the headscarf practice is constructed in the public sphere. In order to understand the headscarf practice in Turkey the nature of the state, religion, social structure, tradition, globalisation and Political Islam will be examined. The international dimensions of, and local responses to the growing use of the headscarf will be examined. Islamic communities have justified the headscarf by urging that it protects the inner life of Islamic communities and women from unwanted male interventions. This claim has been a key aspect of the discourse of the Islamic movements which have arisen in secular Muslim or non-Muslim/western countries. In Turkey, especially, during the early 1990s the issue of women's head covering acquired politicised momentum.