Erasmus as an emerging educational space in Turkey: explanation of a new reality at the nexus of education, youth and change

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1266179 (Table of Contents)

What this thesis aims is to reveal different experiences and facets of the Erasmus exchange program- an important tool of the European educational policies- from the point of view of students towards analyzing students’ study abroad period as well as contrasting images of before and after. Between the hopes of constructing a positive and/or different experience abroad and the various means and difficulties of realizing such an effort, Erasmus student narratives underline some critical topics vis-à-vis the positionality of students from Turkey who study in Europe through the Erasmus exchange program. Erasmus has become the ideal venue to consider multiple student experiences, capabilities as well as change in an expanded, (trans) national and porous social space with the inclusion of numerous actors. I suggest there is far more speficities associated with the students’ experiences based on their social, cultural and academic capital as opposed to the crude expectations on Erasmus generated at (trans) national levels. Moreover, the experience makes students face a different and sometimes new reality in terms of the socio-cultural, academic environment, which in turn transforms the whole experience into a powerful learning context.