A research on occupations in Turkish children's novels

This study sets out to analyse children's novels in terms of content and reader reviews in an occupational context. With this aim, the occupations included and the occupations about which introductory information is provided in the children's novels are identified, and the views of middle school students on the presence of occupations in these novels are determined. This study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative part is designed as embedded single case study. Accordingly, ninety Turkish children's novels are identified as the object of this research by using criterion sampling. Then, document review is conducted on the object using occupational investigation and occupational classification criteria as data collection tools. The resulting data is examined with deductive, inductive, and qualitative content analysis. The quantitative part of the study is designed as survey research. Accordingly, 890 middle school students are chosen by using stratified random sampling. The views of the middle school students on the presence of occupations in children's novels are obtained using a questionnaire developed as data collection tool. The data is analysed using descriptive analysis (frequency and percentage) and cross-table analysis (chi-square independence test and standardized adjusted residuals) in SPSS 23.0. The results of the qualitative part of the study revealed that children's novels include 174 different occupations in various fields in total, with an average of 22 occupations in each novel. This shows the potential of children's novels in terms of introducing occupations. 106 of the identified occupations are introduced in the children's novels, with an average of 5 occupations in each novel. This shows that the potential of children's novels in introducing the occupations is tangible. Notwithstanding, it does not fully reflect the potential. The results of the quantitative part show that middle school students acquire occupational information in children's novels, they encounter unknown occupations in children's novels, they are occupationally influenced by children's novels, and they take the occupations which children's novels include into consideration in their reading preferences. In addition, significant differences in the views of the student on the presence of occupations in children's novels are observed based on the students' grade. Given the findings of the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of this study, children's novels show competences in introducing the professions that the children might want to choose in the future. Key Words: Fictional Children's Literature, Children's Novel, Occupation