Analysing developmental and educational well-being of nomadic yuruk Turkmen children at the pre-school education age from an ecocultural theory perspective

This study is conducted to analyse what roles family structures have in the developmental and educational well-being of nomadic Yuruk Turkmen children at the pre-school education age what the care practices for the developmental well-being of children in cultural society are and which factors affect these practices. Also, what is the daily life participation, informal and formal education processes of these children, and how these processes develop with the ecocultural theory perspective. Ethnography by qualitative research methods is used in this study. This study is conducted on four nomadic Yuruk Turkmen children continuing their education in a pre-school class of two elementary schools under MEB in the city of Mersin, Silifke and Gülnar province within the 2017-2018 academic year, as well as a nomad group that has the care giving responsibility and the teachers of children. The data were collected through observing, interviewing. Also, a researcher diary and ethnographical photographs were used. Each child was observed from 25 September 2017 to 27 May 2018 in their school and their nomad camping site within caregiver, teacher and peer interactions. Additionally, semi-structured interviews are conducted with individuals with caregiving responsibility and teachers of these children. Interview questions and observation plans were prepared based on the ecocultural Family Interview form. During this study, researchers kept a research journal until the end of each day. With the research journal, practices towards the developmental and educational well-being of children in the home and school context and interactions experienced in this practice process were recorded under an ecocultural niche. For the purpose of supporting this complete process in visual terms and evaluating this process, visual records were collected with ethnographic photographing. When analysing all the data obtained from all the data collection tools of this study, the descriptive analysis and content analysis methods are used. Results of this study are discussed under the basis of ecocultural theory. In this sense, it is found that in the development and education of nomadic Yuruk Turkmen children, the ecocultural niche linked with nomadic life is determinant. Mountain husbandry that is an income source of nomad groups and related workload forced nomadic Yuruk Turkmen nomad groups to have large family structures and mechanical cooperation. In society, family structure and mechanical cooperation provides collective support and this collective understanding is effective for care practice towards the developmental well-being of children and the distribution of their roles and responsibilities in these practices. In caregiving practices towards children, caregivers target children to participate in society from early ages as functional members. These objectives and expectations towards development of children are in the direction of children taking an active role in the well-being of both society and themselves. This gives the impression that children have cultural and economic value in the nomadic Yuruk Turkmen culture. Generally, the nomadic lifestyle has positive and negative effects on developmental well-being of children. It is observed that children generally have a happy and healthy development in their own society and nomadic groups, but when they are outside of that context, they experienced problems especially in terms of social development. When the educational well-being of children is analysed, it is observed that problems about access to education and continuity of education continue. In the educational well-being of children in nomadic Yuruk Turkmen societies, it is observed that factors such as nomadic lifestyle, education level of caregivers and the priority of informal education in their education are effective. In addition to low social visibility in the society, there is need to update pre-service and in-service teacher training programs, education and teaching programs, and education policies in our country to be culturally sensitive. Keywords: Child development and education, cultural psychology, childhood well-being, ethnography, Nomadic Yuruk Turkmen, ecocultural theory