ABSTRACT
In a quiet village in Gümüşhane Province in northeastern Turkey, a group of women are chatting in the sunshine of a late winter afternoon. The town’s primary school is visible through the trees in the distance. School is over for the day and the children have come home, abandoning their books and bags to play outside. Zeynep (a university doctoral student researcher) approaches the group of women, who have been waiting for their children to get out of class. She sits down next to Azra, a woman of about 30, who she has met during a previous visit to the village and asks her about her daughter, who is ten years old and in grade 4 at the local school. When Zeynep asks Azra how her daughter is doing at school, Azra replies that she doesn’t really know, other than that she seems to like school and does her homework early each evening. She says that since she sends her daughter to school, she assumes she must be learning. Zeynep then calls over to Azra’s daughter to join them. Zeynep asks the daughter if she can read from the school storybook that she’s carrying. As she stares at a page of the book, it’s immediately apparent that the young girl is unable to read.
