Abstract

Only months following the declaration of the Turkish Republic in October 1923, Turkey’s newly appointed Minister of Public Instruction, Sefa Bey, invited U.S. philosopher and educator John Dewey to survey his fledgling country’s educational system. Having just emerged from a brutal war for independence, Turkey was beginning a process of rapid modernization under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal “Atatürk,” and government officials looked to Dewey for recommendations on how to make Turkish schools agencies of social reform that would advance their state’s identity as a democratic republic. Dewey traveled for two months throughout the country with his wife, Alice, and met with teachers and government officials in ..