The Role of the Erasmus Programme in Overcoming Prejudices and Construction of a European Identity: The Case of Turkey

In this article the main research question is how participation in the Erasmus programme influences the perceptions of the students about Turkey and Turkey's EU membership bid. Secondly Erasmus programme’s influence on identity of the students, particularly their European identity and their perceptions about compatibility of European identity and Turkish identity will be evaluated. The surveys with open-ended questions which had been done between 2009 and 2011 with the Erasmus students at Bahçeşehir University (İstanbul) will be analysed. The surveys which were done at the beginning of the semesters and at the of the semesters will be compared in order to show to what extent the Erasmus programme can influence the perceptions of these students about Turkey. In addition to these, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted by the author with the Erasmus incoming students from Bahçeşehir University at the end of the semesters between 2012 and 2014 and qualitative analysis is made in order to evaluate Erasmus programme’s influence on the perceptions of these students about Turkey, Turkey’s EU membership bid and the perceptions of these students about compatibility of European identity and Turkish identity and lastly the role of the Erasmus experience in construction of European identity among young generations.