ABSTRACT
This article addresses the youth and education policies of the Turkey’s third Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government from 2011 to 2014. This government period was marked by the emergence of a new myth of youth in Turkey: the myth of a pious generation, aimed at replacing the previous myth of a modern and national youth, prevalent in Turkey’s political culture since the nineteenth century and reinforced by the Kemalist Republic. The article first situates the education and youth policies of the AKP in the history of youth in Turkey and discusses the continuities and ruptures between the Kemalist and AKP youth projects. Secondly, through a critical reading of the political discourses of AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and of specific youth and education policies of the government, the paper conceptualizes this newly emerging myth in the context of neoliberal economic and conservative social policies of the AKP government and its aim to control the future through reshaping the young.
