Monday, 9 March 2015

Defining Tautoko - Turkish Conservatism

From watching the documentary 'Fidan' this got me really thinking about the Turkish community in Kreuzberg and how if they are set in their traditional ways, how does this affect the youth? The restrictions on what Turkish youth can and cannot do is fiercely contentious among families and because the hip-hop/rap and breakdance scene is so big in Kreuzberg, it is the Turkish youth that I am interested in advocating.  

I began to research into how 'conservative' the Turkish people are. A study by Professor Hakan Yilmaz - 
'Conservatism in Turkey,' even though the study was conducted in Turkey, it still has relevance to the Turkish community in Kreuzberg and thus my project. The study found that the most influential realm of Turkish conservatism centred upon an idealised “holy family” followed by political skepticism of Western tendencies and influences. 
Figure 1 identifies the percentages of Turkish people whom are conservative versus the not so conservative in each area of topic within the study.
  • The groups of high religious conservatism were (in decreasing order) the ones who did not have a formal education along with people whom aligned themselves with religious political parties. Whereas, the groups that ranked high on having low or no religious conservative attitudes tended to be those who:
    • Lived in one of the three metropolitan cities (Ankra, Istanbul and Izmir)
    • Students of  universities and post-graduate institutions
    • Those who had a middle to higher range of income
  • In conclusion "findings allow us to predict that, in line with the basic tenets of the modernization theory, conservatism, in all its four dimensions, can be expected to lessen as people move from the rural to the urban and from the provincial to the metropolitan areas. Similarly, and again in accordance with the basic assumptions of the modernization theory, an increase in general levels of education and income would also reduce conservative attitudes."


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