Primary school teachers? perceptions about their work alienation levels: The case of Malatya

This research aims to determine whether the alienation perceptions of elementary school teachers changes according to the variables such as sex, work experience, school size ( big, medium and small school) , teachers? subject, marital status and education status in the three dimensions of work alienation: powerlessness, meaninglessness ans isolation.The population of the research comprised 3326 teachers working in 76 state elementary schools in the central district of Malatya province. The sample of the research comprised a total number of 719 teachers working in 31 primary schools.?The Work Alienation Scale? for elementary school teachers developed by Elma (2003) was used to gather the research data. The SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) was used to analyze the data gathered. In order to determine whether or not there has been any difference among the teachers? perceptions in the dimensions of work alienation according to sex, marital status, subject area variables, the t-test was used. On the other hand, variance analysis (One-Way ANOVA) was used to determine whether there was any difference among the teachers? perceptions in the dimensions of work alienation according to school size, work experience and education status variables or not.The work alienation levels of elementary schools? teachers were found on the ?never? level with a mean score of ¯X: 1. 74. However, it was found that teachers got the highest scores from ?Powerlessness? sub-scale. ?Isolation? and ?Meaningfulness? sub-scales followed the ?Powerlessness? sub-scale.As a result of the research, a positive meaningful intermediate powered relationship between the powerlessness and meaningless and isolation subscales; however, a positive, strong powered relationship with work alienation scale was found. A positive, meaningful intermediate powered relationship was found between the meaninglessness and isolation sub-scales. Also, a positive meaningful strong powered relationship was found between the meaninglessness sub-scale and work alienation scale. A positive meaningful strong powered relationship was found between the isolation sub-scale, third subscale of the research and the work alienation scale.Results also showed that levels of work alienation were found high in subject teachers, teachers working in big size schools, young teachers and teachers having a graduate education. As a result of this study, subject, school size, work experience and education level variables were found to have created meaningful differences in teachers? views about work alienation.Key Words: Alienation, Work Alienation, Elementary Schools? Teachers.