Parents' perspective on preschool visual arts education

This study aimed to determine the scope of perspective of the parents on preschool visual arts education by taking the demographic factors into consideration. The target population of the research consists of the parents of students attending in preschools in Ergani district of Diyarbakır in the 2017-2018 academic year. The sample of this research is composed of parents of 414 students attending in Zübeyde Hanım Preschool, Mevlana Preschool, Halide Edip Adıvar Preschool and Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı Preschool that are chosen by random sampling. In this research that employs attitude scale, an attitude scale consisting of two parts made up of 19 items was applied to the parents of the students. The results of the applied attitude scale were analyzed by The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and interpreted. In the study, it was discovered whether the parents attitude towards the preschool visual arts education differed according to the variables such as student's gender, parent's gender, marital status, age, occupation, educational status, monthly income, type of dwelling, number of individuals in the family. Additionally personal opinions of the parents received on the open-ended question directed towards them were also evaluated and included in the study. At the end of the research, the attitudes of the parents of the students towards the preschool visual arts education were found to be generally positive. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in terms of the variables such as student's gender, parent's gender, marital status, age and number of individuals in the family, yet, there was a significant difference in terms of the variables such as occupation, educational status, monthly income and the type of dwelling.These differences are determined to be caused by the result of the difference in socio-economic and cultural structures and affected by the lack of necessary knowledge and understanding about the visual arts lessons. Therefore, the need for parents of the students to be informed about the significance and necessity of visual arts education and practicability of addressing this need by improving the cooperation among teacher, school administration and parents is thought to be substantial improvement for arts education to gain it's rightful place.Keywords:Visual Arts Education, Preschool Education, Parents of Students, Arts Education in Family, Socio-Economic Status.