Investigation of the history and development of primary and secondary school Turkish reading books in the Ministry of National Education between 1936-1960 in terms of gaining critical thinking

The study focuses on the presence, position, and value of critical thinking in Turkish reading textbooks for primary and middle school students between 1936 and 1960. Critical thinking is an essential skill that should be fostered in students from primary school onwards. The contribution of the selected texts included in the Ministry of National Education (MEB) Turkish reading textbooks after 1936 to the development of critical thinking has been investigated. The aim of the study is to provide guidance for future research. It seeks to examine whether critical thinking was present in textbooks in earlier years, both domestically after 1960 and internationally, where research on critical thinking has been influential since 2005, in order to determine the past, present, and future of critical thinking. Examples supporting critical thinking found in primary and middle school reading textbooks within the MEB between 1936 and 1960 were classified and evaluated based on the sub-skills of critical thinking, such as questioning, analyzing, classifying, evaluating, drawing inferences, comparing, and interpreting The evaluation revealed that critical thinking was attempted to be instilled in students through various questions at the primary education level. While some of these questions had direct answers in the text, others required students to make inferences or draw on their own experiences. However, it was observed that there was a significant lack of focus on critical thinking in the high school textbooks, contrary to expectations.