Constructing a “Scientific Manpower Crisis”: Science Education and the Ford Foundation in Cold War Turkey

Yalçınkaya M. A.

History of Education, cilt.53, sa.5, ss.855-875, 2024 (SSCI) identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 53 Sayı: 5
  • Basım Tarihi: 2024
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1080/0046760x.2024.2357631
  • Dergi Adı: History of Education
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, IBZ Online, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Periodicals Index Online, American History and Life, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Gender Studies Database, Historical Abstracts, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.855-875
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: education, Ford Foundation, manpower, science, Turkey
  • TED Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

In the early 1960s, the Ford Foundation funded numerous projects in Turkey, primarily concerning science education and science policy. Related to the post-Sputnik debates on “scientific manpower needs,” and modernisation theory’s emphasis on “industrialising elites” in the developing world, these projects were the products of an intellectual bandwagon comprising scientists and experts commonly working with transnational organisations like the OECD and UNESCO. Characterising the need in terms influenced by this trend, the Ford Foundation’s representative in Turkey proposed establishing a special high school for students gifted in the sciences. Analysing the process of the establishment of this school, this article explores how Turkish scientists connected to the same networks participated in the Foundation’s initiatives to advance their status, and examines the broad political and economic factors that the Foundation’s “non-ideological” interest in education for scientific manpower overlooked, leading to the mixed results of the project.