Discipline cases which took place in secondary schools and preventive practisesof headmasters (Sample of Rize province)

Scope of this research is to detect the distribution of disciplinary cases occurred in private and state secondary schools in the province of Rize and its districts by school types, identifying the opinions and solution recommendations of the school headmasters regarding preventing the disciplinary actions occurred in their schools and shedding light upon the disciplinary practices in the secondary schools by revealing the successful precautions among such precautionary measures taken by the school headmasters. In this research, not only the question "What is the distribution of disciplinary cases occurred in private and state secondary schools in the province of Rize and what are the precautionary measures taken by the school headmasters against these disciplinary actions?" is answered, but also some other questions such as what the disciplinary cases occurred in secondary schools are, differences of disciplinary cases in secondary schools according to school types, punishment given by the school administration against such disciplinary cases and precautionary measures taken by the school headmasters to prevent the disciplinary cases occurred in secondary schools are answered. This research consists of six sections. The first section is the introduction section and includes the problem case, subject of the research and the problem itself, the main problem of the study, other problems, purpose of the research, importance of the research and limitations. In the second section, the theoretic framework, discipline, disciplinary approaches, disciplinary models and related notions are explained. In the third section, method section, the method, model of the research, study group, personal information of the school headmasters, data collecting and analysis of the date are identified. The fourth section is the findings section consisting of the date obtained as a result of the research. The fifth section contains the discussions and comments and finally the results and recommendations are identified in the sixth section. This research is a qualitative research and also disciplinary register books of 34 secondary schools were investigated in order to determine the disciplinary cases occurred in the school through document analysis. Semi – structured interview technique was used with the school headmasters to detect the precautionary measures they take against such disciplinary actions and descriptive method was used for the analysis of the data obtained. Some the opinions obtained from the interviews made with the school headmasters about their disciplinary approaches and precautionary practices were quoted and reflected in the findings sections. Sample of this research consists of the semi-structured interviews made with 30 school headmasters from 12 Vocational and Technical High Schools, 9 Anatolian High Schools, 4 Religious High Schools, 4 Science High Schools and 1 Private High School and disciplinary register books of 34 secondary schools (13 Anatolian High Schools, 12 Vocational and Technical High Schools, 4 Religious High Schools, 4 Science High Schools and 1 Private High School) belonging to 201-2015 school year. According to the results of the research performed it was evident that the disciplinary cases mostly occurred in secondary schools were interrupting the lesson and extracurricular activities (17,95%), carrying and using tobacco and tobacco products within the school (17,67%), fighting, committing physical force against the others (12,48%), behaving rudely and disrespectfully (8.69%), cheating or helping other students to cheat (6.87%), insulting the others (4.90%), disobeying the school uniform rules (4.34%), making amendments on the documents given by the school (3.64%). When the distribution of disciplinary cases occurred in secondary schools by school types and the disciplinary register books of the school were investigated, it was evident that the most common disciplinary cases occurred in Anatolian high schools were carrying and using tobacco and tobacco products (27,39%), the most common disciplinary case occurred in Science High Schools was making amendments on the documents given by the school (30,76%), the most common disciplinary case occurred in Vocational and Technical Anatolian Highs Schools was interrupting the lesson and extracurricular activities (24,93%), the most common disciplinary case occurred in Religious High Schools were cheating or helping other students to cheat (23,52%). In terms with the private high schools, it was evident that there weren't any disciplinary cases reported officially in the document analysis performed. After investigating the disciplinary register books of the schools belonging to the school year of 2014-2015, it was recognised that the most common punishment given to students by the school disciplinary committee against such disciplinary actions was reprimanding (63,26%), the second punishment was giving suspension from the school for a short time and the third punishment was changing the school. As a result of the data obtained from the interviews with the school headmasters within the scope of this research, it was evident that for the precautionary measures against such disciplinary actions the school headmasters used mostly the approaches including the measures taken with guidance and counselling services (16.92%), measures taken with penal sanctions (15.88%), measures taken by approaching the student positively (12.26%), measures taken with the school managers, teacher and the personnel (11.05%), measures taken with the parents (9.84%) and measures taken according to the disciplinary regulation (8.98%). Considering that the most commonly used precautionary approach among the measures taken the school headmasters against the disciplinary cases in the schools is "The Approach of Taking Measures with Guidance and Counselling Services (16.92%), it can be said that this is an indicator for the attempts of activating such precautionary and remedial disciplinary approaches in schools. As a result of the interviews with the school headmasters and investigation of the disciplinary reports within the scope of this research, it has been found that there are some differences in disciplinary approaches applied in schools according to school types and school headmasters. Accordingly, "Punitive Disciplinary Approach" is the most common practice in Vocational and Technical High Schools and "Remedial and Precautionary Disciplinary Approach" is the most common practice in Anatolian and Religious High Schools and "Modern Disciplinary Approach" is the most common practice especially in Anatolian and Science High Schools which have academically successful students. This research is important in terms with illuminating the common precautionary measure studies against disciplinary cases in secondary schools within the whole country. Besides, including the findings of this research in the in-service training programmes of teachers and administrators will have an important role in preventing wrong actions and making the administrators more cautious against the disciplinary cased occurred or likely to occur and making them gain the necessary ability in this context. As a result of this research we can say that it will be useful to perform some other researches about subjects such as investigation of the effect of service year of school headmasters as a headmaster on disciplinary approaches and practices, investigation of the effect of position concerns for school headmasters on disciplinary approaches and practices, investigation of the approaches and apprehension of private school headmasters on disciplinary problems and punishment sanctions, investigation of the effect of the school atmosphere on the disciplinary approaches and practices of the teachers, investigation the connection between the age range of the teachers working in the schools and the disciplinary approaches and practices and investigation of the effect of assignment type of school headmasters on the disciplinary practices. This shows us that some new researches should be performed. Key Words: Sample of Rize, disciplinary, discipline in secondary education, school headmaster, disciplinary models