ABSTRACT
Fundamental to the establishment of the Turkish Republic was the development of a new concept of citizenship in the national polity that would go hand in hand with the nation-building process. Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the Republic, perceived citizenship as the very core of the legitimacy of the Republic. 1 Accordingly, he himself actively participated in designing a compulsory course of civic education that was to be taught in the schools of Turkey. In those early days of the Republic, civic education in the country began with the course entitled Malumat-ı Vataniyye (Information about the Motherland) which was included in school curricula in 1924. In 1927, it was replaced by Yurt Bilgisi (again the same meaning, Information about the Motherland), and finally from 1985 on, it was offered with the title of Vatandaşlık Bilgileri (Information about Citizenship). 2 In other words, from the very start in Turkey, citizenship was officially taken to be one of the key elements of successful nation-building.
