Abstract:
This study aims to identify the controversial issues in Turkey based on the views of some education
stakeholders and analyze the experiences of teachers in terms of those controversial issues. This study was
designed in a qualitative research design. The participants of the study are 250 academics from the departments
of educational sciences, maths and science, Turkish and social sciences, primary education, foreign languages
and fine arts of universities; 26 form tutors, religious culture and ethics, Turkish, science, maths and English
teachers employed in public schools in Eskişehir; and the representatives of 5 teacher unions. The data were
collected through semi-structured interviews with teachers and open ended questionnaires with academics and
the representatives of teacher unions. Inductive analysis method was used to analyse all the data. The study
revealed that the controversial issues which were identified by the help of education stakeholders were mostly
not covered in elementary education curriculum and in teachers’ practices due to various reasons such as teacher
approaches and competences, student approaches, parents, course books and the curriculum. In other words, the
controversial issues could be named as the null curriculum itself.
