ABSTRACT
This study investigates language ideology governing the Turkish Ministry of National Education’s (MNE) secondary-level school curriculum for English; the way locally published English textbooks for these schools are influenced by the ideologically driven policies described in the MNE’s curriculum document, and whether these textbooks portray globality in cultural representation. The study draws upon grounded theory as the underlying methodology. Travers and Westbury’s framework of curriculum representation is used to determine consistency between the MNE curriculum with the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in terms of their underlying goals and ideologies. In addition, four locally published English textbooks are analysed using Cortazzi and Jin’s categories of cultural analysis. It has been found that in its ideology, the MNE curriculum is greatly informed by the philosophies highlighted by the CEFR. The textbooks are found to adhere to the Turkish MNE’s curriculum objectives and they are in harmony with the underlying educational ideologies. In relation to culture, English textbooks are found to be highly sensitive to familiarizing students with cultural elements that extend beyond the source and the target culture to presenting intercultural elements in their content. As such, they seem to promote globality and contribute to the development of students’ intercultural communicative competence.
