Determining individual, social and traditional values of German people settled in Turkey

This study was planned and carried out to determine the individual, social and traditional values of German people who settled in Turkey; to compare these values with the values of local people and to determine to what extent the values of these two nations influence each other. The fact that no study was carried out Turkey on the German people who settled in Turkey enhance the significance of the present study.The population of the study consists of Turkish people living in Alanya district of Antalya province and the German who settled in this area. Randomly selected 250 Germans and 164 Turks residing in the study area who volunteered to participate in the study were included in the study as the sampling of the study. In data collection, Schwarts Value Inventory, Social Values Scale, Traditional Values Scale were used and to determine the demographic characteristics of the individuals, a questionnaire form was used.Of the Germans who participated in the study, 20.3% were between the ages of 40-44; 15.6% were between the ages of 50-54. Of the Turks who participated in the study, 27.3% were 35-39, 22.7% were between the ages of 40-44. Of the Germans 85.8% were married, 11.5% were single, 2.0% were divorced or lost their spouses. Of the Turks, 85.4% were married, 13.4% were single, 1.2% lost their spouses. Of the German who were included in the study, 37.2% were at least secondary school graduates, while half of the Turks were primary school graduates. Of the Germans, 16.2% had an income of 35001-4000 Euro, while 37.8% of the Turks had an income of 501 and 1000 Turkish Liras.Among the reasons for preferring to settle in Turkey, 31.1% of the German people reported that they loved Turkey very much and 20.2% reported that they settled in Turkey for economic reasons.It was found that Turkish people had higher individual, social and traditional value scores than the Germans. There was a statistically significant difference between the groups (p<.001).It was found that after the Germans settled in Turkey, among the subscales of individual values scale, traditionalism, hedonist, stimulation (search for excitement and newness), self-direction+universalism scores and the scores form traditional values scale increased, however there was no statistically significant difference. It was found that among individual values, being integrated with the nature (harmony with the nature), being moderate (avoiding from extreme emotions and actions) values of the Germans increased and that there was a statistically significant difference between the groups (p<.05, p<.001).It was found that individual, social and traditional value average scores of the Turks who were living close to or at a distance from Germans were similar, however among individual values, power and hedonism values and social value scores were higher in people who were living close to Germans.It was found that individual, social and traditional value scores did not vary according to gender in Germans and Turks.As the period of staying in Turkey increased for German people, among individual values, power, hedonism, self-direction+universalism, adaptation and security scores decreased. There was a statistically significant difference between the groups (p<.05, p<.01).It was observed that as the period of staying in Turkey was increased, hedonism scores decreased and that other individual values scores increased. This increase was not statistically significant. It was found that depending on the period of staying in Turkey, there was an increase in traditional family values. There was a significant difference between the groups (p<.05)Key words: value, individual values, social values, traditional values