ISCHE 37 will be held in Istanbul in 2015 on the theme of ‘Culture and Education’. The purpose of this conference is to examine the relations between education and culture in the historical process. The conference will try to provide answers to the following questions: What is the relationship between culture and education? What are the roles of educational reforms and educational borrowing in the cultural changes? What are the roles of educational institutions, educators, and educational materials in culture formation and transformation? How education and elements of culture such as language, religion, symbols, and routines influenced each other throughout history?

The conference sub-themes are as follow:

a. Cultural paradigm and education: Different purpose, importance and value of education according to culture; individualist or collectivist cultural values and effect of these values on education through the centuries; perception of concepts such as hierarchy, equality, freedom, democracy in different cultures and transferring these concepts through education; role of education in cultural changes; accepted and rejected educational elements as a result of interaction of culture; education borrowing, etc.

b. Agents of intercultural interact: pioneer educators of cultural exchange; educational organizations and institutions, teachers’ associations, educational journals, the media, international organizations, etc.

c. Language and education: Language of instruction in Ancient-Medieval-Modern Age; effects of instruction language on various cultures; instruction language and culturing; development of mother tongue education and the pioneer individuals and institutions; language reforms and reflections on education, foreign language education and cultural interaction, etc.

d. Religion and education: Temple education in Early Mesopotamia and Egypt; education in Ancient China, India and Turks; early religious Jewish education; establishment of Christian education theory, organization, and schools in Antioch, Alexandria, Rome; cathedral schools, universities and scholastic education; Islamic education and madrasah; process of transition to laic education; perception of secular education in different cultures; cultural change and laic, secular education, etc.

e. Symbols, heroes, stories, and myths: From the historical perspective, power symbols such as administrator’s or teachers’ room; school and classroom design; meaning of using symbols in the education environment such as flag, cross, crescent, tughra, star, poster, badging; use of symbols, myths and stories about people and events conveying a message about what is valued in the culture; etc.

f. Rituals and routines: Flag ceremonies, morning ceremonies, reciting a pledge or national anthem; national holidays and special day celebrations and other events which became a tradition or habit more than a necessity; how educational rituals and routines occurred throughout the centuries, and how rituals and routines constructed culture and values through education, etc.

Papers and panel presentations are invited that examine the conference theme. Abstracts should have a maximum of 500 words including bibliography and written in one of the official languages of ISCHE: English, French, German or Spanish. All proposals for the main conference must be submitted using the online submission form: http://2015.ische.org/submission.php. The deadline for the submission of paper is 17 November 2014. Applicants will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of proposals at the beginning of February 2015. For those presenting papers at the conference, the deadline for registration is 30 April 2015. Failure to register by this deadline will result in removal from the conference programme and book of abstracts.