Dr Önder Cetin

Knowledge in Transition

MRG C3.08

+49 531 59099-366
oender.cetin(at)gei.de

Önder Cetin joined the GEI in January 2016 as a research fellow, with his project focusing on the incorporation of cultural memory instruments into Turkish textbooks in order to contribute to the maintenance of a shared memory and social cohesion by addressing the country’s multicultural heritage. He currently works as a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department Knowledge in Transition.

Dr. Cetin’s research on the role of textbooks in the construction of nation-building and inter-communal relations dates back to his PhD research at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, which focused on the role of Bosniak ulama in shaping Bosniak national and religious identity and rebuilding inter-communal relations in the post-war era, including their use of religious textbooks.

Following his research on the discourses and images of migration and migrants in Turkish textbooks (2017), he contributed to the Constructions of the Turkish Self-image (2018) project as a Project Consultant, which analysed the construction of self-images in textbooks used for Turkish instruction as a heritage language in Germany.

In his following project, Between School and Mosque: A Comparative Analysis of Textbooks for Religious Instruction in Turkish language, (2018-2020) Dr. Cetin´s comparative research focused on religious instruction in Turkish textbooks published in Germany and Turkey. The main purpose of this project was to demonstrate how religious self-images are constructed with regard to particular communal, religious and social values that shape inter-communal and inter-religious relations.

The two projects were the first systematic and comparative in-depth examinations of Turkish instruction and religious studies textbooks used in formal school and non-formal educational settings provided by Germany’s major Turkish-Islamic communities. In addition to addressing previously overlooked sources, the projects have particularly contributed to the study of migration and Islam in Germany by examining the emic approach to social change in the Turkish community in Germany and considering Turkish textbooks as both information and emotion entrepreneurs.

As part of the project "Schulbuch und aktuelle Kulturpolitik," his research in 2021 focused on how specific socio-cultural and political dynamics influence the construction of self-images and intercommunal relations in Turkish teaching materials, as well as how they are depicted in textbooks and maintained or changed during textbook revisions. As a result of this project, he co-organized an international workshop on "Textbook Revisions in the Middle East and North Africa: Lessons from the Turkish Case" on December 21-22, 2021, in collaboration with the MENA Network's School Textbooks in the MENA Region project, which examines textbooks in the MENA region and Turkey.

Dr. Cetin is currently coordinating the research project Stories of Diversity from Ukraine, Poland, and Turkey: Local history as a didactic approach to historical learning, which aims to design and create digital teaching materials that address transnational and transregional interrelationships based on the history of diversity and can be used in history lessons in German schools as well as educational programs in Polish, Turkish, and Ukrainian origin-language-education (HSU) in Germany.

Projects

Selected Publications

Cetin, Ö. (2023). Reconstructing the Turkish Jewish identity of Çanakkale between silence and speaking out: Nostalgia as an exit strategy. Memory Studies, doi.org/10.1177/17506980231155559
Cetin, Ö. (2023). In Front of God, Next to the Neighbours: Turkish Textbooks as Emotion Entrepreneurs Negotiating Self-images through the Construction of Socio-cultural Problems in Germany. Journal of Muslims in Europe 12(2): 143–160. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/22117954-bja10065
Cetin, Ö. (2023). Reconstructing the Turkish Jewish identity of Çanakkale between silence and speaking out: Nostalgia as an exit strategy. Memory Studies, DOI: 10.1177/17506980231155559
Cetin, Ö., & Spielhaus, R. (2022). Konstruktionen des türkischen Selbstbilds in Schulbüchern für den Herkunftssprachlichen Türkischunterricht von 1991 bis 2017. Eckert. Dossiers 1, urn:nbn:de:0220-2022-0059. Available at: repository.gei.de/handle/11428/336.
Cetin, Ö. (2022). Revisiting the Prospect of Revision in Secondary School Turkish History Textbooks: The Case of the Assyrian Debate. British Journal of Educational Studies 70(4): 481–500. DOI: doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2021.1990851
Cetin, Ö. (2020). Migration and Migrants between the Favorable and the Problematic: A Discourse Analysis of Secondary School Turkish History Textbooks from 1966 to 2018. Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society (JEMMS) 12(2): 77–104.
Spielhaus R, Štimac Z and Cetin Ö (2019). Konstruktionen des türkischen Selbstbilds in Schulbüchern für den herkunftsspraclichen Türkischunterricht. Final Research Report of the Project, „Konstruktionen des türkischen Selbstbilds in Schulbüchern für den herkunftssprachlichen Türkischunterricht“ submitted to the Max-Traeger-Stiftung. Braunschweig: Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research.
Cetin, Ö. (2017). Global Citizenship Education in Turkish Textbooks. Policy Brief drafted as part of the broader Research Project “Textbooks Put to the Test: Global Citizenship Education in International Perspective.”
Cetin, Ö. (2015). Book Review of Religion as a Conversation Starter: Interreligious Dialogue for Peacebuilding in the Balkans, Ina Merdjanova and Patrice Brodeur, 2009. London and New York: Continuum’. Insight Turkey 17(2).
Cetin, Ö. (2012). Islamic Religious Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina- Between Coexistence and Segregation. In Islam in Political-Cultural Europe, edited by W. C. Durham, D. Kirkham and T. Lindholm, 165–87. London and New York: Routledge. 2012.
Cetin, Ö. (2012). Faith-based NGOs and Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In The Ashgate Companion to Religion and Conflict Resolution, edited by L. Marsden, 461–99. Surrey: Ashgate.
Cetin, Ö. (2011). Muslims, Bosnians and Bosniaks shaped among Sarajevo, Sandžak and Belgrade. In Spaces and Borders: Current Research on Religion in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by A. Máté-Tóth and C. Rughiniş, 65–80. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Cetin, Ö. (2010). 1941 Resolutions of El-Hidaje in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a Case of Traditional Conflict Transformation. EJEPS (European Journal of Economic and Political Studies) 3(2): 73–83.
Cetin, Ö. (2010). 20. yüzyıl Bosna'sında bir tartışma: Türkiye'ye göç hicret sayılır mı? [A Debate in 20th century Bosna: Is immigration to Turkey considered to be hijra?]. Toplumsal Tarih 201: 28–31.

Selected Presentations

Cetin, Ö. (2019). “Constructing „the social problem“: References to „the religious” in the Textbooks of Turkish Instruction in Germany.“ Paper presented at the 33. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Vereinigung für Religionswissenschaft (DVRW): Konzeptualisierungen von Religion, Leibniz University Hannover.
Cetin, Ö. (2018). “Turkish Perceptions on `Crisis´: From late Ottoman to Republican Turkey.” Paper presented at the International Workshop on Cultures of Crises. Workshop II: Globalising the Concept of Crisis in the 20th Century, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung. Potsdam.
Cetin, Ö. (2018). “History in focus: Constructions of the Turkish self-image in textbooks for Turkish as a heritage language.” Paper presented at the Workshop on Konstruktionen von Identität in Schulbüchern für den herkunftssprachlichen Türkischunterricht. Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Braunschweig.
Cetin, Ö. (2017). “Constructing a Collective Memory in between “the Favourable” and “the Problematic”: Discursive Representation of Migration and Migrants in Turkish Textbooks with Particular Focus on Geography Textbooks. Paper presented at the 2^nd Annual Conference of Memory Studies Association, Copenhagen University, Denmark.