Investigation of the social emotional learning and basic democratic value levels of students participating in school sports

In this study, it is aimed to examine the relationship between social emotional learning skills and basic democratic values levels of secondary school students who do and do not do sports regularly, in terms of various variables. The sample of the study consists of 750 secondary school students, 379 (50.53%) female and 371 (49.46% male) 7th and 8th grade students in Gaziantep. In the study, 16 items were asked to determine the demographic characteristics of the students, 20 items were asked to determine their social emotional learning skills, and 34 items were asked to determine their basic democratic value levels. In the evaluation of the data, Kruskal-Wallis H test and Mann-Whitney U test were used to determine the significance within the group. When the distribution of the students according to their gender is analyzed, 43.7% of the students who do sports are females and 56.3% are male students, while 57.3% of the students who do not do sports are females and 42.7% are male students. As a result of the research, when the social emotional learning skills and basic democratic value levels of female and male students who do or do not do sports are examined, statistically significant differences have been found in favor of those who do sports (p<0.05). When the social emotional learning skills and basic democratic value levels of the students who do or do not do sports were examined according to their grade levels, statistically significant differences have been found in favor of those who do sports (p<0.05). In this research, the general attitudes of the students who do sports are constantly interacting in cooperation are positively affected. Moreover, both levels of sub-dimensions of social emotional learning scale like task definition, peer relations, self-regulation and levels of sub-dimension of basic democratic value scale like cooperation, self-confidence, respect for differences, and fairness have increased. It has been concluded that there is a positive relationship between social emotional learning and basic democratic values.