To determine what socio demographic variables affect the students' alienation of fifth grade students at elementary school

iiiABSTRACTTO DETERMİNE WHAT SOCIO DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES AFFECTTHE STUDENTS? ALIENATION OF FIFTH GRADE STUDENTS ATELEMENTARY SCHOOLÖzlem UZUNMaster Thesis, Department of Elementary EducationSupervisor: Asst. Prof. Songül TÜMKAYAApril, 2006, 117The purpose of this study is to develop a scale to measure the level of alienationof fifth grade students at elementary school and to determine what socio demographicvariables affect the students? alienation level.Stratified sampling design was used through two stages. In the first stage, as apopulation of 310 fifth grade students for pilot study participated in the study. The firstquestionnaire composed of 96 items was given to the participants. In order to obtainconstruct validity, data were collected from 132 fifth grade students from two differentschools. In order to obtain the similar construct validity, 83 fifth grade students weregiven the same questionnaire once, and 51 fifth grade students were given the samequestionnaire for reliability twice with four week intervals. In the second stage of thestudy, based on socio demographic characteristics, the scores obtained from SSA (Scaleof School Alienation) in the first stage were compared with gender, students?perceptionof family economic status, education level of family, class size in order to find outwhether there was a significant difference between these variables with the datacollected from 13 schools, 4 of which were private, 9 of which were private schools.982 students, composed of 493 females (% 50.20) and 489 males (%49.8), participatedin the study.ivTo summarize the findings, it was found that the scale to measure alienationdeveloped was reliable and valid. The scale was composed of four categories, which arepowerlessness, meaninglessness, social isolation and normlessness.In terms of gender differences it was found that males tend to become morealienated than females according to the scores obtained from subcategories ofpowerlessness, normlessness, and social isolation. According to socio economic status(SES), the students in the middle class experience more weakness than the ones in theupper class. According to socio economic status (SES) findings, it was found thatexcept normlessness subscale, there is a significant difference between two groups. Thestudents living in the low SES experience more alienation than those living in themiddle and high class. There is a significant difference between the education level offamily and students? alienation. The students whose mothers are illiterate experiencemore alienation than the ones whose mothers are graduate of secondary or high schools.In the same way, the students whose fathers are illiterate experience more alienationthan the ones whose fathers are graduates of high schools. According to the class sizevariable, except the powerlessness subscale, it was found that the students who were ina large class size experience more alienation than the ones in a less large class size. Thesignificant difference shows that the students attending 25-34 size class experiencemore alienation than those attending 45-54 size class.Key Words: Alienation, powerlessness, meaninglessness, social isolation, normlesness