A evalation on gender roles in Turkish lullabies

This study aims to identify, classify, and analyze the gender expectations presented in Turkish lullabies within the context of gender roles. Unlike biological sex, gender is a socially constructed concept that prescribes specific roles for individuals based on whether they are considered female or male. These roles are taught through various means from a very early age, one of which is lullabies. These cultural products, typically sung by mothers to lull their children to sleep, serve not only as tools for soothing but also as mediums through which social values, norms, and gender roles are conveyed at an early stage. In lullabies, mothers act as spokespersons of society and reflect societal expectations onto their children. What matters here is not so much what the mother says, but what tradition makes the mother say. Lullabies, like fairy tales, folk songs, and other oral cultural products, offer significant clues about how femininity and masculinity should be portrayed and performed, the roles assigned to women and men, and the division of duties between mothers and fathers. The fact that mothers sing different lullabies with different themes and forms of address to their daughters and sons lays the groundwork for children to internalize the gender identities expected of them. Considering that gender roles are first learned and internalized within the family, and lullabies are typically performed in this context, lullabies are considered a valuable tool for tracing gender roles. Due to the limited number of existing studies addressing the relationship between lullabies and gender in the current literature, and the absence of a consistent methodological approach in those studies, a three-stage methodological process was designed in this thesis to identify, classify, and analyze the presented data.