Prof. Dr. Fatma Gök danışmanlığındaki tezler
10 tez · Boğaziçi University
Differentiating children through education: School choices and educational practices of middle - class families in neoliberal times
This research examines school choices and educational practices of middle-class families within the context of neoliberalization. The aim is to understand the ways in which their dispositions in education contribute to the creation of class advantage, class distinctions and increasing inequalities in a society. The data was collected mainly through in-depth interviews with parents, administrators and teachers in two selective high schools –one public and one private high school–in Istanbul. The findings indicate that reproduction of the middle class on the basis of education is highly dependent on the mobilization of economic, cultural and social capital of the families with extensive efforts of mothers. Since families have a high sense of responsibility for directing children's education in the right way and making up differentiated children, they become more responsive to market signals in trying to find the best schools and the best ways to support the academic and individual development of their children. In this process, parents' desires, dispositions and choices are shaped by the rationality of neoliberalism and those who continuously invest in children for enhancing their economic and social well-being turn into "active, responsible, competitive and entrepreneurial" subjects. After all, since their educational strategies and practices contribute to a social boundary-making process, middle-class families continue to retain their key roles in the creation and reproduction of class-based distinctions within the context of neoliberalization.
The phenomenon of disability perception in blindness
The present study aimed to investigate the perception differences of blind people about their blindness, the determining factors of those differences and their possible consequences. For this purpose a qualitative survey was conducted on 36 blind participants, 22 men and 14 women. The findings revealed 5 perception levels from affirmer participants to normalizers. It is found out that, while affirmers and partial affirmers view blindness as a part of their identity, a difference and are not eager for a possible cure, for negative perceivers and normalizers, blindness is certainly a deficiency and is the main causes of their troubles in their lives. Independent living skills and equal interrelation with both blind and sighted people were observed as the most determining factor of perception of disability. The role of schools for blind had dualistic effects. While they provided independence skills, they had inhibitory effects in the lives of the participants. The impact of sight degree, family atmosphere, employment area, technology and blind related NGO's as facilitator or inhibitory factors were also discussed. The findings showed that people with more positive blindness perception had more active roles on both blind related and other NGO areas.
Breastfeeding the educational system: Analyzing women's unpaid labor and voluntary mother participation in schools within the context of neoliberal economic policies
This study intends to examine the role of mothers in the school system in the context of the neoliberal transformation process with regard to the special labor of women in the forms of domestic labor, care labor and voluntary work. In this respect, the presence of mothers in the school system is analyzed in terms of the labor processes and the special characteristics of this unpaid labor in interaction with the ways in which their patriarchally defined motherhood role is utilized to penetrate in the power positions in the school system. The issue is conceptualized around the notions of power and empowerment and around the related strategies implemented by mothers in the school. The research aims to unveil the ways in which the mothers' practices and attitudes in the school field reproduce the class and gender inequalities. In this respect, the differentiations in the mothers' attitudes in their participation process and the tensions created by their praxis are analyzed. The research identifies and illustrates certain characteristics of the activities and relationships in the school environment to signal the reproduction of gender inequality and the exclusion generating from the class differences. Finally, with reference to the findings, an alternative way of maternal participation in order to elicit empowerment for and solidarity of women regarding the intermitting class differences is discussed and expanded. The field data and the analysis point out that with the neoliberal policies which retract public funding from education and leave the schools on their own fate with the discourse of 'parental participation', mothers started to take part in the 'running' of the schools. With this penetration, they started to locate themselves in the power positions such as Parent Teacher Associations (PTA) in the school system. The way to PTA passes from the functioning and social capital gaining in the position of Classroom Motherhood (CM) which represents the mothers who allocate their unpaid labor to substitute the duties of the state in the schools. However, these power positions and the power struggles unveil the class difference of the mothers as actresses in the school system. Because middle-class mothers have relatively more economic and cultural capital, they can easily occupy the power positions in the school, whereas working class mothers deprived of economic and cultural capital, they have no voice in the school system. The maternal participation is patriarchally designed in the neoliberal system in essence and the power is gained in a sphere where patriarchal rules are valid, thus this kind of environment results in 'power-gaining' of the middle class mothers and this represents a contrast with the feminist empowerment discourse as the power gained by the middle class mothers keep the working class women in deprivation. The analysis of the data led to the development of certain conceptions such as 'network blockage strategy', 'dispossession of social capital', 'catalyzing capital' and 'breastocracy' to unveil the power relations and to shed light to possibilities of genuine women's empowerment.
An analysis of lifelong learning policies and practices of regional development agencies
This study aims to reveal how adult education activities are formulated in regional policies of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). To gather information, document analysis and semi-structured interviews are used. The semi-structured interview form is developed by the researcher and it is prepared for four different RDAs on April, 2013. The sample of the study is formed through nine persons who are experts of RDAs. Additionally, content analysis was used as a research method to make a document analysis of the RDAs? lifelong learning policies. The study mainly focuses on nine documents. Primary documents are mainly used as data sources, and the selection of these documents is designed to fit the specific research questions underpinning this study. Agencies are new structures that bring the harmonization process with the EU to life and embody private sector dynamism in their structures when Turkey?s history of development is considered. Agencies have played important roles in relation to ?responding to market demands? which has been very popular in liberal discourse within the last ten years, as practitioners of supranational and national policies in the regions. Agencies produce practical solutions to market requirements through funds. Agencies provide funds to projects that aim to give occupational training to a variety of groups especially for these purposes. The results of the study demonstrate that adult education policies are generally instrumentalized to produce the output that can create the labor force which has the competence and equipment suitable for the labor markets and structured for small-scale and short-term economic objectives. Lifelong learning is not discussed in the social context. This causes human to be defined as an input ? human capital ? to be transformed into labor force.
The education of gifted K-8 students in Turkey: Policy analysis and program evaluation
This study intended to examine two major issues related to the education of gifted K-8 students in Turkey. The first purpose of this study was to examine the existing policies and their elements regarding the education of gifted K-8 students. The second purpose was to conduct a program evaluation of K-8 Gifted Education Program to address how well the elementary schools with gifted programs respond to the needs of gifted students.The first purpose is carried out through content analysis of publicly available policy documents. The second purpose is fulfilled through case examples of three elementary schools educating gifted students. Two private and one public schools with gifted programs were included in the case. The Classroom Observation Scale (COS) was the instrument used for classroom observation data collection. In addition, interviews were conducted with teachers and administrators.The findings of this study revealed there is a serious dearth of documented evidence regarding the education policy on gifted students and their schooling in Turkey. The study also revealed the lack of coherence in gifted education policy including definition, identification and placement concerns, and teacher training and personnel preparation.Data collected based on program evaluation provided considerable evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of gifted programs in a public and private schools. Besides some important strength in gifted programs, program evaluation revealed that there are issues of concern such as the lack of well-defined and implemented effective curriculum, weaknesses in instructional strategies and curriculum modification to respond academic needs of gifted learners, and the problems in parent involvement and necessary funding allocation specific to public school.This study will contribute to the body of knowledge related to the policy analysis and evaluation of gifted education programs in Turkey.
Reasons of internally displaced Kurdish women for not participating in educational programs in PECs: A narrative analysis
This thesis aims to explore the reasons of internally displaced Kurdish women living in Bayramtepe, İstanbul for not participating to vocational and literacy courses provided by PECs (People?s Education Centers) through an analysis of their own perceptions of their life stories.The study employs narrative inquiry, categorical-content analysis in particular, to gain insight into the reasons of internally displaced Kurdish women for not participating in vocational and literacy courses served by PECs. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 9 Kurdish women between ages 26-51 in Bayramtepe, Küçükçekmece.Narrative analysis of the data led to the formation of several outstanding themes. Discrimination based on ethnicity and language, demand for education in mother tongue, suppression of the husband and the immediate family, burden of children and the household duties, and health problems emerged as the most common factors that hindered women from participating or continuing further to educational activities.Internally displaced Kurdish women?s nonparticipation to adult educational activities has been discussed within the concepts of mother tongue, patriarchal family structure, ethnic background, internal displacement, and in accordance with literature on effects of displacement on women. Along with some factors that are results of the process of internal displacement, patriarchal family structure has come out as an important factor that prevented particularly young Kurdish women from participating in such activities. On the other hand, relatively older Kurdish women could not participate in vocational and literacy courses because they lacked language skills in Turkish, leading them to demand education in the mother tongue. Most of the Kurdish women could not join educational facilities due to the density of household jobs and care for children as a result of social gender roles. Finally, being internally displaced has created a negative attitude among Kurdish women towards the state. The findings were discussed by constant comparison and contrast with global views on gender dimensions of internal displacement.
An analysis of correctional education programs in Turkish prisons: Perceptions of correctional educators and inmates
This study aims to explore the perceptions of correctional educators and inmates about the correctional education programs in a men?s and a women?s prison in Turkey and compare these perceptions of correctional educators and inmates to each other.Two groups, namely, correctional educators and inmates, participated in the study. Ten correctional educators, five from each prison, formed the first group of the participants in the study. Twenty inmates, ten from each prison, formed the second group.The data were collected through interview, a data collection technique of the qualitative method. A semi-structured interview form was developed. Both groups? interviews included fourteen questions and the data gathered from the interviews were analyzed by the content analysis method.The findings of the study revealed that correctional educators are not as satisfied with taking place in correctional education environment as inmates are. However, it was further revealed that both correctional educators and inmates have similar perspectives about the factors that facilitate or complicate inmates? success in correctional education programs, the necessity that all inmates should be provided with professional skills during their incarceration, the existence of the in-prison and after-prison positive effects of the correctional education programs on inmates and the existence of the problems in correctional education environments and the ways of solving these problems as well.In the light of the findings, recommendations for correctional educators, authorities and the entire society were made for the sake of improving the correctional facilities in Turkish prisons.
The transformation of higher education by means of techno-parks: Case of Turkey
This study aims to explore the transformation of the universities by means of the techno-parks in Turkey in which innovation is used as a strategy. In order to conduct a critical phenomenological analysis, the study is divided two different parts in which the first part generates a perspective from outside by analyzing critically related documents about the reasons behind the transformation of the higher education and the development of the techno-parks. While analyzing these concepts, the university-industry-government partnership, which forces to make changes in the universities and ?human capital,? is studied together with the science and technology policies and national strategies, which are taken into consideration with the arrangements and mechanisms in the techno-parks at the universities. More importantly, while conceptualizing and problematizing this transformation, the second part, as a case study, explores a perspective from inside by asking personal experiences and perceptions of the participants related to the same questions of the first part, which are the reasons behind the transformation of the higher education and the development of the techno-parks. Furthermore, the segregation in terms of gender, the implications of science and technology policies, and spatial redevelopment, which generate exacerbation of economic and spatial inequality, and political transformation, were critically analyzed by the data collected from the participants of the focus group. Additionally, exacerbation of economic and spatial inequality was analyzed together with economic and political transformation by questioning commercialization, marketization, commodification, managerialism, massification, privatization, internalization, rationalization, vocationalization, liberalization, revaluation, devaluation, reterritorialization, and entrepreneurialization of the higher education.After analyzing the related documents about the reasons behind the transformation of higher education, particularly those related to the techno-parks, it is so clear that the reasons are not only national, but also supranational where innovation and knowledge are taken as drivers of the competitiveness and growth. Therefore, the Turkish government has taken specific actions under the pressure of ?the future prosperity and welfare depend on the ability of its citizens, companies and institutions to generate, access, and utilize knowledge and information.? Because of financial crisis and lack of the infrastructure in terms of the competitiveness, Turkey has risk of falling behind, like other countries and competitors. The transformation in the higher education is seen as the marketization of the universities by means of generating technological knowledge, which is commodified in the global market economy so that the integration of the universities has been enforced by the government and by the private industry. The benefits are mainly taken by the political stakeholders and private sector because the unemployment rate and the country?s current account deficit can be decreased, while the competitiveness in the knowledge economy is increased. All in all, the effects of the techno-parks will be serious on the academic missions of universities, while changing innovation system so that the missions of universities are re-defined. Particularly, those people?s roles in the academia are taken into account as counselors and marketing people so that the environment of the universities generates a dilemma, particularly in the techno-parks, which are governed as big corporations. As a result, knowledge as a commodity can be sold in the market and techno-parks and universities have become the headquarters of corporations. The analyses show that as a phenomenon universities are not capable of absorbing the increasing demand so that techno-parks open new liberalization in commodification of knowledge. In order to make all these changes, related laws and regulations are rearranged and implemented. The transformation towards entrepreneurialization has profoundly produced different problems, which are denied by the system.
A globally competent teacher as a citizen: A study of primary school teachers' competences related to global citizenship
Since, in the more complex world of the future, people will be more interdependent upon and interconnected with each other, the education of individuals with the competency of a global citizen is important for a more just and egalitarian world and the ability to learn to live and work together. It is a fact that teachers play a significant role and have a great responsibility within this process. This study, therefore, has been implemented with the participation of primary school teachers, who will equip the citizens of future with the competencies of global citizenship, for two main objectives. Within the compass of the first objective, the seven participants were asked to define a globally competent teacher as a citizen by means of the Normative Delphi Technique. After three rounds of application, a consensus was obtained among the participants, which constituted the definition of a globally competent teacher as a citizen. Within the domain of the second objective, the global competency areas regarding the knowledge, understanding, skills, values and attitudes that the six participants have as globally competent teachers were analysed in several stages by means of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. As a result of the analysis conducted and based on the prepared scale, twenty five of the fifty one emergent themes listed under the eight super-ordinate themes which are regarded as the sub-competency areas of global citizenship competency were observed in the participants. The analysis of how do teachers? competences diverge and converge in terms of having competence in the super-ordinate themes has been conducted in two stages and in accordance with the observed emergent themes. In this sense, it has been accepted that the participants converge on the existence of super-ordinate themes of ?diversity, value and respect? and ?empathy and sense of common humanity? and the absence of the super-ordinate themes of ?critical thinking?, ?ability to argue effectively? and ?commitment to social justice and equity?. It has been accepted that they diverge on the super-ordinate themes of ?social justice and equity?, ?peace and conflict? and ?respect for people and things?. In the last stage of this study, a quadruple Likert evaluation was made in accordance with the total number of the observed individual emergent themes. In terms of being ?a globally competent teacher as a citizen?, it has been found that, out of the six participants, one of them is ?fully competent?, two of them are ?competent?, two of them are ?slightly competent? and one of them is ?not competent?.
Women teachers' perceptions of their identities inside and outside the school
Despite the growing interest in the issue of gender and education, few studies have been concerned with the question of women teachers? identity formation considering the expected roles from them by the society they live in. This thesis attempts to explore the perceptions of women teachers about their identities inside and outside the school through a case study with ten women teachers working in public elementary schools of Istanbul. The results, gathered from semi-structured interviews, indicated the teachers? identities as multiple and contextually-bound. All the women teachers in the study identified their position in society through the internalized social roles and the socially constructed expectations from them as a ?woman?. Impacted by both gender, professional and social discourses that sometimes collide, findings from women teachers? interviews demonstrate how these women struggle to take a position in a male-dominant system. The analysis of the interviews indicated that women teachers perceptions? of their identities shaped around these themes: ?patriarchal norms of the society?, ?authority and power relations at school?, ?expectations from the profession and disappointments throughout teaching?, ?being emotional and emphatic as a women?, ?economic freedom? and ?political awareness of women teachers?, ?balancing the demands of private life and work life?, ?marriage and effects on women teachers? social status?, ?collegial cooperation? and ?discrimination against women teachers?. This thesis presented that regarding these themes, negotiating identities within themselves and within the complex socio cultural context they live in, these women teachers are involved in an ongoing process of adjustment, adaptation and resistance.