ETHNICITY, LANGUAGE, EDUCATION: CONFRONTATION OF MOTHER TONGUE AND GOVERNMENT’S LANGUAGE WITHIN ETHNIC HOUSEHOLDS

Abstract

This study focuses on language shifts within ethnic households and is based on a qualitative research on perceptions of the mother tongue among 57 such households in Istanbul’s Zeytinburnu district in 2014. The research data was expanded in mid-2015 to analyze how the Turkish education system’s monolingual approach creates an internal decision-making process about language preferences within the ethnic households in Zeytinburnu. It also theoretically describes the relationship between the state’s language politics at schools and the future of ethnic children’s lifelong group membership. Ethnic parents with children attending primary and secondary schools expressed concerns about turning their mother tongue into a second language even within their homes but recognized that their children must speak the ‘government’s language’ and participate in a discursively planned process to have equal opportunity for success in the Turkish society. The parents’ awareness of ‘political intention’ is analyzed by a qualitative approach and results are interpreted from the perspectives of sociological theory and language shift studies. Although ethnic parents encourage their children to speak Turkish in order to maximize the children’s potential, they also develop survival strategies to keep their identities and cultures alive, such as setting up surroundings in which the mother tongue continues to be practiced.

Keywords

• Ethnicity
• Education
• Language shift
• Ethnic households
• Monolingualism

ETNİSİTE, DİL, EĞİTİM: ETNİK HANEHALKLARINDA DEVLET DİLİ VE ANADİLİN YÜZLEŞİMİ

Abstract

Bu çalışma etnik hanelerdeki dil değişimine odaklanmakta ve 2014 yılında İstanbul’un Zeytinburnu ilçesinde 57 etnik hane arasında anadil algıları üzerine yürütülmüş kalitatif bir araştırmaya dayanmaktadır. Araştırma verisi 2015 yılı ortalarında, Zeytinburnu’ndaki etnik haneledeki dil tercihlerinde iç karar mekanizmalarını Türkiye eğitim sisteminin monolisgualist yaklaşımının nasıl etkilediğini incelemek için genişletilmiştir. Ayrıca, devletin okullardaki dil politikaları ve etnik çocukların yaşam boyu grup üyeliğinin geleceği arasındaki ilişkiyi teorik olarak tanımlamaktadır.  İlk ve ortaokullara devam eden çocukları olan etnik ebeveynler anadillerinin, hanelerinde bile ikinci dile dönüşmesinden duydukları endişeyi vurgulamışlardır. Fakat çocuklarının devletin dilini konuşma zorunluluklarını ve Türkiye’de eşit başarı fırsatına sahip olmak için söylemsel olarak planlanmış bu sürece katılmanın gerekliliğini kabul etmektedirler. Ebeveynlerin “politik niyetin” farkında oluşu bir kalitatif yaklaşımla analiz edilmektedir ve sonuçlar sosyolojik teori perspektifleri ve dil değiştirim çalışmalarına dayanılarak yorumlanmaktadır. Etnik ebeveynler çocuklarının potansiyelini yükseltmek amacı ile Türkçe konuşmalarını destekleseler de, kimliklerini ve kültürlerini canlı tutmak için anadilin düzenli olarak konuşulduğu çevreler kurgulamak gibi  yaşam stratejileri de geliştirmektedirler.

Keywords

• etnisite
• eğitim
• dil değiştirimi
• etnik hanehalkları
• monoligualizm

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