A Language of Freedom and Teacher's Authority: Case Comparisons from Turkey and the United States

A Language of Freedom and Teacher’s Authority: Case Comparisons from Turkey and the United States explores dimensions of authority that are deeply embedded in the profession of teaching. It examines critical dimensions of the foundations of Turkish and U.S. public education, both of which are under new pressures due to changes in the relationship between public schooling and current reforms in education. The contributors reflect on varied dimensions of authority, of which ideals are shifting under political and economic pressures. In both Turkey and the U.S, public education reflects the early influence of secular equalitarianism, revolutionary democratic developments, and an Enlightenment-based sense of the human right to education. Against this, we see the opposing dialectic where state control and curricular censorship and constriction appear too often.

Peter McLaren is Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies at Chapman University, USA, and Co-Director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice. He is also Emeritus Professor of Urban Education, UCLA, USA, and Emeritus Professor of Educational Leadership, Miami University of Ohio, USA. He is also Honorary Director of the Center for Critical Studies in Education in Northeast Normal University, China. He is the author/editor of over forty books including Pedagogy of Insurrection (2015).

Fatma Mizikaci is Head of the Curriculum and Instruction Division and English Language Teaching Department in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at Ankara University, Turkey. She is the chief editor of A Language of Freedom and Teacher's Authority: Case Comparisons from Turkey and the United States (2017), and co-editor of From Here to There: Mileposts of European Higher Education (2007) and Tools for Process Evaluation (2006).