Seeing the glass half-empty: implications for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage through formal education in Türkiye

Formal education is a key element for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH Convention) and definitions in Articles 2.2 and 14. However, integration of ICH into schools is challenging, due to problems in adapting the ICH Convention into national, regional and local contexts. This article critically examines Türkiye’s experience in ICH safeguarding through formal education and its negative implications. Focus is on primary education Folk Culture course that was introduced after Türkiye ratified the ICH Convention in 2006. The course was attended by 206,570 students in the 2018–2019 academic year. Findings on curricula and interviews with teachers reveal that assignments of a particular unit to support the transmission of ICH is inefficient and misleading, since teachers were insufficiently involved in capacity-building activities. This article discusses how ineffective formal education can create ICH marginalisation and render it institutionally non-functional. Formal education can be a double-edged tool with advantages and disadvantages for safeguarding, with possible negative conclusions.