EUGEO Congress – september 2013

Europe seen by Turkish students: a mental definition from a non-eurocentric point of view

Etienne Toureille, Université Paris Diderot,UMR 8506 Géographie Cités

Map coming from a Turkish textbook from 1989(Copeaux, 2000)

Outline

1- Introduction: the necessity of a non-Eurocentric perspective in the case of Turkey

2- The dominant representations of Europe by Turkish students (aggregative analysis)

3- The role of gender and education (cross-analysis)

Introduction 1 – Why Turkey ?

The context of European studies

To give interest to extra-european vision of Europe (Lucarelli and Fioramonti, 2009)

A new role in the World and opportunities for TurkeyAn emerging power in the multipolar Word.

Relativizing the European destiny of Turkey:A multi-orientec politic and national iconography

A non-Eurocentric perspective (Europe in the World)

Why is Turkey a relevant object for the study of a worldwide geography of representations ? Why decentring the point of

view about Europe?

Growth of the Turkish GDP since 2007 (Word Bank)

Introduction 2 – main issues

Consequences of the 2005’s debates on the Turkish public opinion.

Is Turkey turning back to Europe ?

Is Europe still positively viewed ? Or are Turkish people now regarding to new horizons ?

Introduction 3 – about the survey EuroBroadMap

EuroBroadMap

http://www.eurobroadmap.eu/

CitiesErzurum 23

8Istanbul 25

1Izmir 24

5GenderFemales 36

3Males 36

9Fields of StudyArt 11

6Business 12

0Engineering 13

2Health 12

0Political Sc. 11

9Social Sc. 12

7TOTAL 73

4

An international survey (9 341 students from 18 countries)

Conducted during spring 2008

With undergraduate students (average age 21)

For more informations about the survey see:

Number of students

Introduction – the question

Extract from the questionnaire

Residential preferences

Judgement about places (countries)

Europe relatively to the rest of the World (not disconnected)

2- The dominant representations of Europe by Turkish students

Principe and method: analysing the dominant vision in the Turkish sample through 2 indexes :

A “knowledge index”(in order to observe the importance of each country in the whole quotations)

 Knowledge(i) =

An “asymmetry” index (in order to observe for each country

the ratio between positive and negative quotations where student would like to

live or not)

Asymmetry (i)=

pi = number of positive answers for the country i, ni = number of negative answers for the contry i, S = total number of students who answered the question.

pi - ni pi + ni 

pi + ni S

« Where would you like to live

in the near future? »

« Where would you NOT like to live in the near

future? »

More attractive but less known (than for other students)

More attractive

and better known

More repulsive and better known

More repulsive but less known

Some elements about the answers to the question:

Using a tool of the statistical textual analysis:

« Where would you like to live in the near future? »

3- The role of gender and education

Specific vocabulary: words which are significantly used by an identifiable group in the population.

Girls attracted by West and boys by East

Word or charecteristic segment Internal % Global % Internal frequency Global frequency Valeur-Test P value

FRA 12,1 9,1 157 247 5,146 0,000ITA FRA 2,2 1,2 29 32 4,910 0,000ITA 14,9 11,7 193 317 4,905 0,000GRC 2,2 1,6 29 43 2,456 0,007ITA GBR 2,0 1,4 26 38 2,375 0,009USA FRA 1,8 1,2 23 33 2,342 0,010EGY 2,6 2,0 34 54 2,117 0,017USA ITA 1,2 0,8 15 21 1,951 0,026ITA EGY 0,5 0,3 7 8 1,929 0,027ITA GRC 0,8 0,5 10 13 1,836 0,033FRA GBR 1,4 1,0 18 27 1,763 0,039FRA USA 0,6 0,4 8 10 1,735 0,041USA FRA ITA 0,5 0,3 6 7 1,648 0,050

Girls specific vocabulary

Word or characteristic Internal % Global % Internal Frequency Global frequency Valeur-Test P value

RUS 4,4 2,8 62 77 5,114 0,000UKR 1,2 0,7 17 18 3,636 0,000AZE 1,5 1,0 21 28 2,280 0,011JPN 4,7 4,0 67 107 2,116 0,017KAZ 0,7 0,4 10 12 1,923 0,027LUX 0,4 0,2 5 5 1,768 0,039BRA 1,7 1,3 24 36 1,593 0,056

Boys specific vocabulary

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

* Selection of the significant results

About cities of survey and fields of study*

* Selection of significant results

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN THE NEAR FUTURE?

Students from Erzurum prefer:Azerbaïjan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, ChinaStudents from Istanbul prefer:

Italia, Spain, Austria, Czech Republic

Students from Izmir prefer:Russia, Mexico, Spain, Swizerland

The role of the city of survey The role of the field of studyStudents in arts prefer:USA, France, Netherlands

Students in business prefer:Swizerland, SwedenStudents in ingineering prefer:Italy, Ukraine, RussiaStudents in the health sector prefer:USA, India, Egypt

Students in political sciences prefer:CubaStudents in social sciences prefer:New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, United Emirates, Brazil

Concluding remarks Europe remains a relevant area in the representations of Turkish

students (knowledge)…

…But mainly through a little group of very positive viewed countries (Italy, France, Great Britain and Spain).

Observations about dominants representations autorise some explanation related to collective representations (History of the country, influence of the media…)

The analysis of the specific vocabulary shows the influence of individual factors.

Threfore, Europe is a complex object, analysed throught the residential preferencies.

A new survey conducted in spring 2012 will give some elements about the inertia of the Turkish students representations. This new survey will also give more informations about the relative importance of collective or individual factors.

Thank you for your attention !

Referencies (selective)

Copeaux, E., 2000, Une Vision turque du monde: à travers les cartes de 1931 à nos jours (A Turkish Vision of the World: through maps since 1931), Paris, CNRS Éditions, 240 p.

Didelon, C., de Ruffray, S, and, Grasland, (dir.), 2011, Mental Maps of Students, (deliverable of the Eurobroadmap Survey for the FP7 Framework of the European Commission), aviable on www.eurobroadmap.eu,197 p.

Beauguitte L., and, Grasland, C., 2012, « Modeling Attractiveness of Global Places, A Worldwide survey on 9 000 undergraduate students », ERSA conference paper, 28 p.

Lucarelli, S., and Fioramonti, L., (dir.), 2009, The External Image of the European Union, phase two, aviable on www.garnet-eu.org

Soon submitted publication (with more about textual analysis): Guérin-Pace, F., Toureille, E., and, Grasland, C., « A cross-analysis of mental maps of Turkish undergraduate students », European Journal of Social Sciences (Revue Européenne de Sciences sociales).