In short, the typical university student in Turkey at this time was male and came from either a civil or military bureaucrat family, meaning that most of the research on the 1968 generation is focused on male activity. In addition, the majority of students came from civil or military bureaucrat middle class families. In the academic year of 1968, for example, only 6.5% of young people within the same age category were university students, and within this category only 19% of the university students were female. In other words, the 1968 movement in Turkey recruited its members from universities, yet an in-depth study of students from this period shows that only a small minority of young people had the "privilege" to study at university. The first university occupation began in Ankara University, in the Language-History-Geography Faculty on 10 June 1968, quickly spreading to The Faculty of Law and Sciences on June 11, then to Istanbul University’s Faculty of Law on June 12, 1968. The 1968 generation in Turkey first emerged as a student movement focused on reform within the university system, but towards the end of the sixties it evolved into a revolutionary movement, eventually fighting for the use of revolutionary violence after the military intervention of 1971.
Turkey consequently found itself experienced in extremes leading to the political polarization and political violence in late sixties and seventies. The study of the 1968 generation in Turkey offers a very interesting case, not only because Turkey was undergoing a big transformation during this time, with an increasing population, with a high rate of urbanization and industrialization, but also because it was a devout NATO ally as a neighboring country of the Soviet Union during the Cold War era. There is an abundance of literature on the 1960s - particularly the generation’s youth movements - in the west, however it is important to study the period in different geographies in order to better comprehend the different colors of the student movements all around the globe.
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