Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Egitim Arastirmalari - Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, sa.38, ss.19-36, 2010 (SSCI)
Problem Statement: The dominant values of a historical moment are reflected in children's literature. Children's books also serve as a socializing tool to transmit a society's values to its next generation. In periods where life-long learning is supported, works of children's literature create models that children may imitate outside of their immediate circle, help children discover their environment and learn the values of the society in which they live; thus, it provides permanent contributions to their socializing process. The presentation of women is also affected by social and cultural values and the figure of "woman" is presented to children by the authors of children's literature in accordance with that society's point of view. From the form of such presentations, the child arrives at conclusions with respect to the roles attributed to his/her gender by social/cultural values.Purpose of Study: The objective of this study is to establish how and at what level the novels in the "100 Basic Literary Works" list, recommended by the Ministry of National Education in Turkey to be read by elementary school students, present the theme of "woman."Methods: To this end, 13 novels in the 100 Basic Literary Works list were studied by use of the "content analysis" method with regard to the presentation of woman. Findings and Results: When the status of women in all the books is considered in terms of intensity, it was observed that women were presented mostly negatively (189.8%o), with neutrally a close second (181.8%o), and were presented positively with the least intensity (63.1%o).Furthermore, in eight of the novels out of the thirteen studied, womenwere presented negatively. Conclusions and Recommendations: In these books, the woman is shown as the gender subject to violence, doing the washing up and washing the dishes, cooking, knitting, sitting at home, and not making use of mass communication tools such as books and newspapers. In this study, only the "novels" were studied in terms of the presentation of women. The examination from this perspective of the other genres, notably the stories among the 100 Basic Literary Works and contemporary Turkish children's literature, would be useful.