Examination of children's literature works in the context of sensitivity education: The case of Gülten Dayioğlu

Child literature is an important phenomenon that accompanies the individual from the early childhood to adulthood in the process of recognizing and understanding life. The contribution of the individual to cognitive, linguistic and social development and to the perception and meaning of life from an artistic point of view is extremely significant. In terms of importance, it is important that the quality of these contributions that children's literature provides to the child, not the numerical surplus. One of the distinguishing aspects of qualified children's literature is that it contributes to the individual's ability to show sensitivity to life. Sensitivity, which is considered as an individual's ability to deal with and care about situations outside of his own life and the world to which he belongs, requires a process that is based on difficult and radical efforts to develop. In order to increase the effectiveness of the process, children should be brought together with qualified children's books from the early period. In this study, Gülten Dayıoğlu's five different children's books were analyzed in terms of sensitivity education. Basic qualitative research design was used in the study and the data were obtained through document analysis. In the determination and grouping of sensitivity issues, the content analysis was conducted by taking into account the category formed by Aslan (2016). All 35 sensitivities identified were determined in different stories. The most common issues are sensitivity to human and human happiness and nature. In addition to this, sensitivity to family members, love-love, animals, solidarity and honesty were frequently discussed. In this context, it can be concluded that Gülten Dayıoğlu's works can contribute to individuals gaining sensitivity to people and everything around them.