New Perspectives in Science Education

Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, and John Dewey were some of the famous intellectuals who created innovative educational school concepts, fascinated and motivated societies to found private educational institutions in the last century. [1] Today, Fethullah Gulen, Turkish Islamic Scholar and the founder of the so-called Hizmet (Service) Movement which is also known as the Gulen Movement, also impressed millions of people to found educational institutions in and out of Turkey in the last five decades. [2] Through the internationalization process of the movement after the Soviet Resolution, different Gulen inspired educational institutions were also founded outside of Turkey and expanded this type of schooling to the world. [3] The purpose of this paper is to describe the progressive education model of these Gulen inspired schools and to examine the methodology of Gulen during the mobilization of the society to found such a kind of educational institutions. A qualitative research design is used to study this issue. Semi-structured expert interviews are conducted with managers of the Gulen Inspired Schools from three continents: Europe, Africa and the US and  experts of the subject. The results show that the education model of Gulen inspired schools depends on reforming the management of a traditional education system, instead of reforming teaching or pedagogy. This new type of management is based on a philosophy of “Global thinking, Local acting”  and managers of these schools accomplish  this philosophy in three steps such as cooperation and collaboration with the local environment, contributing local needs or problems and building international connections and partnerships. [4] Through these steps, educational systems in these schools are based on global, secular, moral and ethical values, instead of religious values, but at the same time they empower the local cultural values through international contests. Related to this point, the participation of the community with  this type of schooling and the connection between Gulen inspired schools and society is also described in this paper.

Keywords: Gulen Movement, Gulen inspired schools, educational mobilization of Society, ethics in education, localization.

References:

1. Barz, H. (2018). Einleitung zum Handbuch Reformpädagogik und Bildungsreform. Handbuch Bildungsreform und Reformpädagogik, Wiesbaden, Deutschland: Springer, 1-13.
2. Findley, C. V. (2010). Turkey, Islam, Nationalism and Modernity. London, New Haven: Yale University Press, 384-390.
3. Alam, A. (2019). For the Sake of Allah, The Origin, Development and discourse of the Gülen Movement, Clifton NJ, USA: Blue Dome Press, 136.
4. Altin, M.E. (2020). Additional Educational Activities in and out of Class, Internationalization through Localization: Gülen Inspired Schools, PhD Dissertation on Faculty of Philosophy of Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf: HHU Universität Publikation Server, 254-256.