Original Article Protectionism and rapprochement in Turkish higher music education: An analysis of the mission and vision statements of conservatoires and university music departments in the republic of Turkey Tom Parkinson Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Kent, UK Olcay Muslu Gardner Antakya State Conservatory, Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Turkey Abstract Music education institutions have played a prominent role in mediating national identity in the Republic of Turkey since its founding in 1923. Initially tasked with suppressing Ottoman heritage, their nature and status changed with the ascendance of political Islam, when interest in Turkey’s Ottoman past grew and the Western aesthetics of the founding elite were increasingly contested. While music education continues to be a site of national identity construction in Turkey, no studies focus on the ideological climate of music education in the era of the Justice and Development Party, who Corresponding author: Tom Parkinson, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Kent, UK. Email: t.parkinson@kent.ac.uk Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 0(0) 1–21 ! The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1474022220983255 journals.sagepub.com/home/ahh