https://doi.org/10.1177/0022057420943189 Journal of Education 1–15 © 2020 Trustees of Boston University Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0022057420943189 journals.sagepub.com/home/jex Original Research Report Introduction Educational reform movements in Turkey, centralizing rad- ical changes in the elementary (Grades 1–8) curriculums, were launched in 2003. In this sense, the elementary school reform or curriculum reform was implemented for five school subjects: Mathematics, Science, Social Science, Life Science, and Turkish (Aksit, 2007; Koç et al., 2007; Ministry of National Education [MoNE], 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d, 2005e). The curriculum reform held in Turkey required teachers to have and apply a new pedagogy featuring more learner-centered instructional strategies. As accepted, every radical change in a schooling system brings about various hurdles while the system is stabilized. This study explored the typologies of the instructional barriers faced by teachers when they tried to handle an aspect of the reform-based teaching in their classroom. Educational Reform Movements in Turkey Since the curriculum reform was accepted and designed in a more learner-centered manner in Turkey, it had required a higher quality and longitudinal in-service teacher training and development of the infrastructure of school districts. Moreover, since the curriculum reform has centralized learners’ voices to be heard in classrooms, particular inter- est should be given to learners’ prior knowledge bases and skills, emotions, attitudes, interests, and self-confidence (Aksit, 2007; Koç et al., 2007; MoNE, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d, 2005e). In a sense, the curriculum reform was conducted to radi- cally change the views and practices of teachers to adopt a novel pedagogy. This intended pedagogy incorporates dia- logic teaching in which both teachers and students have dis- cursive chances and responsibilities to make intellectual contributions to classroom discourse. To put it differently, not only Piagetian cognitive psychology but also Vygotskian sociocultural or discursive psychology was attempted to be prominent in planning, designing, and acting teaching sequences in elementary and middle school contexts (Koç et al., 2007). Actually, reform-based initiatives could be evaluated as more emancipatory in terms of students as they would have chances to be epistemic and social authorities in the classroom when their teachers are promoted to invite them to the co-construction of knowledge. The curriculum reform of Turkey was adapted in line with a philosophy that scaffolds participatory co-construc- tion of knowledge by means of more learner-centered teach- ing approaches such as problem solving, inquiry-based teaching, project-based teaching, or collaborative learning (MoNE, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d, 2005e). The curricu- lum reform incorporated the enhancement of newly arranged 943189JEX XX X 10.1177/0022057420943189Journal of EducationSoysal and Radmard research-article 2020 1 Istanbul Aydin University, Turkey Corresponding Author: Y. Soysal, Department of Elementary Education, Faculty of Education, Istanbul Aydin University, Istanbul 34295, Turkey. Email: yilmazsoysal@aydin.edu.tr Barriers Faced by Teachers as an Estimator of the Effectiveness of Reform-Based Initiatives Y. Soysal 1 and S. Radmard 1 Abstract The purpose of this study was to present the barriers experienced by Turkish teachers when required to engage in more learner-centered teaching and to determine the extent of their awareness of attempts to reform the curriculum. A natural inquiry was conducted. Six themes related to the teachers’ barrier definitions were abstracted. The teachers had low levels of awareness of the reform-based initiatives. The teachers had a pedagogical orientation by which they were not able to conceptualize the true barriers that might be faced during authentic learner-centered teaching. Recommendations for professional development and further research are offered. Keywords teaching barriers, learner-centered teaching, professional development, Turkish context, educational reform, qualitative analysis