Education policy in an era of neoliberal urbanisation: a case study of Istanbul’s school relocations

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines an effort to spatially re-organise urban public schools in the largest city in Turkey. Recently, the Turkish government has made an effort to relocate inner-city public schools in Istanbul to less desirable parts of the city. Analysing how education policy in the country is tied to wider political mechanisms and considering the results of the studies carried out in various parts of the world, this article argues that the interaction between education and urban life in Turkey displays unique characteristics in terms of the populations implicated in the policy change and the spaces transformed as a result. Two salient characteristics are the involvement of the secular middle class and the perception by them that school relocations entail de-secularisation of the city and the education system. The article argues that these characteristics should be conceptualised in the context of particular conjunctures of forces driven by different contradictions.