Missing Subjects of Social and Economic Development: Women with Headscarves

Abstract

In Turkey, mandatory education is provided by the state, and therefore, individuals with fragile socioeconomic indicators do not experience barriers of inequality to inclusion to education. However, in about 1997, the women with headscarves also gained visibility in education and this led to certain social events in Turkey. The practice widely known as “headscarf ban” that began in 1997 decreed the expulsion of women with headscarves from the higher education process. When it is considered that the mandatory education in Turkey is 12 years and that the undergraduate education takes 4 years, the headscarf ban during the 1997-2013 corresponds to a period in which a person accumulates her human capital. This study is on how women who have been systematically cast out from education and employment perceive: a) their forfeited role in the development of Turkey’s economy; b) their own assessment of their lack of employment due to the headscarf ban; and c) being barred from education, their individual losses and Turkey’s economic prosperity.