Analysis of the stories in the magazine "Friend to Children" in terms of values and the perceptions of the 4th grade students

The purpose of this study is to analyze the value perceptions of primary school children by analyzing the stories in the historical magazine "Friend to Children", which was published as twelve issues between 1881-1882 in the 19th century. In the research, first of all, the stories were transcribed and analyzed. Afterwards, they were taught to children in the 4th grade of primary school and their knowledge about values was revealed. In the research, the document analysis technique used in the qualitative research method was used. In the first stage of the research, the stories in the magazine "Children's Friend" were examined with the document analysis technique. In the second stage of the research, the interview technique, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used. In this context, the students' views on the stories in the magazine "Friend to Children" were tried to be revealed through face-to-face interviews through a semi-structured interview form. The participants of the research are 10 students at 4th grade of Mehmet Akif Ersoy Primary School in the 2020-2021 academic years. Students were randomly selected. Easily accessible case sampling, which is one of the purposeful sampling methods, was preferred to identify participants. This is because student levels are close to each other. The interviews were recorded with a voice recorder and then transcribed. The findings part of the research consists of the analysis of the stories in the Journal of Friend to Children and the interview data. After the transcription of the 24 stories in the magazine, they were simplified and each of the stories was analyzed in terms of values. Then, the values in the stories that are the subject of the research and the distribution of these values are arranged in a table. It was determined that the values were mentioned 71 times in the stories. It has been determined that the values of honesty, accuracy and responsibility are mostly passed. Again, the values of justice and independence were treated at least. Before the stories were read, an interview form was applied to determine the students' predictions and perceptions about values. As a result of the application, it was seen that the awareness of the values was very low and the level of consciousness was insufficient in the students. At the end of the interview held after the stories were read, it was determined that the students' level of meaning and awareness of values increased. It has been determined that the 12 journals examined in the research are rich in terms of values to be taught to children, and it can be recommended that it would be beneficial to read them for this purpose. According to the findings obtained from the study, it is possible to benefit from ancient works in the field of values education and in these works; suggestions have been made that tales, stories and poems can be used as an education material in schools.