The purpose of this article is to discuss the ways in which the social, political and cultural foundation of the headscarf as a symbol affects the nature and practice of educational life. It will examine the ways in which the headscarf practice is constructed in the public sphere. In order to understand the headscarf practice in Turkey the nature of the state, religion, social structure, tradition, globalisation and Political Islam will be examined. The international dimensions of, and local responses to the growing use of the headscarf will be examined. Islamic communities have justified the headscarf by urging that it protects the inner life of Islamic communities and women from unwanted male interventions. This claim has been a key aspect of the discourse of the Islamic movements which have arisen in secular Muslim or non-Muslim/western countries. In Turkey, especially, during the early 1990s the issue of women's head covering acquired politicised momentum.