This article aims at examining representation of Turkish perspectives on Korea through Korean-narratives in Turkish history and geography textbooks from the late 1970s to the early 2010s. As textbooks are an important medium in which official ideology...
This article aims at examining representation of Turkish perspectives on Korea through Korean-narratives in Turkish history and geography textbooks from the late 1970s to the early 2010s. As textbooks are an important medium in which official ideology and politics are reflected, the content of a textbook covers the dominating or official perspectives of a country. Developing a textbook in Turkey is directly followed formal procedures of the Turkish Ministry of Education. For such reasons as mentioned, Korea described in Turkish textbooks plays significant roles in.
Korea is introduced as one part of Japanese or Chinese history and geography in Turkish history and geography textbooks from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Since 1990s, Turkish geography textbooks focused on not Japanese and Chinese part but just `Korea` like country overview, natural circumstances, industry and so on. After the 2000s, it is found Korean war, Korean economic development, high technology, Seoul (one of the major city in the world), Korean and Turkish trade and so on in Turkish history and geography textbooks. While Turkey understood Korea through Japan and China in the past, recently it is changed to pay attention to Korea itself. Nowadays Hallyu (Korean waves) promotes to enhance Korean-Turkish relationship and increases exchanges between the two countries. It is needed more in-depth mutual understanding through both countries` textbooks at this moment.