Turkey: Silencing ethnic inequalities under a carpet of nationalism shifting between secular and religious poles

This article offers a systematic review of educational and sociological research in Turkey on the relationship between race/ethnicity and educational inequality between 1980 and 2017. A major challenge regarding this research topic is that ethnic differences were a taboo topic in Turkey until recently, so systematic information on ethnic differences is lacking. Still, three research traditions could be distinguished, namely research that focuses on (1) regional differences, (2) language differences and (3) religious differences. The existing studies predominantly embrace a deficit perspective and quantitative research methods and a more positivistic approach to social sciences. Currently, alarming developments are visible: improvement in minority language rights in education is halted and the violent armed conflicts have started again. Finally, the recent migration developments, with the influx of three million Syrians, remain largely out of the scope of the literature.