Human Rights Issues In Textbooks: The Turkish Case

Textbooks used in elementary and secondary education not only serve as fundamental educational instruments for students and instrucors, but also implement methods of thinking, research and expression by their content, style, and format. It is vitally important that they should be designed to protect "the right to education" by conveying accurate, up-to-date, objective information, to endorse respect for human life and dignity, and to uphold other basic human rights such as "the right to freedom of opinion and expression" found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The essays in this collection have been compiled from a book published by the History Foundation of Turkey and the Turkish Academy of Sciences as part of a project on human rights issues in textbooks used in elementary and secondary education in Turkey. They highlight the essential results of the most comprehensive survey conducted in this field by interpreting and analyzing 190 textbooks currently in ciculation.