A practice towards developing the intangible cultural heritage literacy skills of middle school students in social studies course

The term intangible cultural heritage (ICH), which can take its place in most areas of life, is an important term that has important functions in helping the individual embrace his roots. The fact that an individual feeds and strengthens his sense of belonging to the land to which he feels allegiance depends on being intimate with ICH from an early age and therefore gaining intangible cultural heritage literacy. Accordingly, the research aimed to provide secondary school 7th grade students with intangible cultural heritage literacy skills in the social studies course. Mixed research method was used in the research, and the quantitative dimension was a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group; the qualitative dimension is structured in the phenomenology pattern. The quantitative dimension of the research was conducted with a total of 73 7th grade secondary school students, 25 in the experimental group and 28+20 in the control group, studying at a public school in Kastamonu. The qualitative dimension was carried out with 25 secondary school 7th grade students, where the experimental procedure was carried out. In the quantitative dimension of the research, the Word Association Test (WAT) and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Literacy Scale (ICHLS) developed by the researcher were used. In the qualitative dimension of the research, an interview form was used. SPSS 25.0 package program was used to analyze the quantitative data. Two-way analysis of variance for mixed measurements was used to analyze the quantitative data obtained within the scope of the research. Analysis of qualitative data was carried out by content analysis. As a result of the research, it was determined that there was a difference between the pretest and posttest intangible cultural heritage literacy scores of secondary school 7th grade students in favor of the posttests. However, it has been revealed that the activities implemented to provide intangible cultural heritage literacy in social studies teaching increase students' ICHLS skills. It was determined that there was a significant increase in the total number of words produced by the students regarding the key concepts in the Word Association Test. It was determined that as the cut-off point narrowed, the number of words produced for key concepts increased. In addition, it was determined that the number of scientific sentences made by the students increased and the existing misconceptions were largely eliminated. According to the findings obtained from the qualitative dimension, it was determined that secondary school 7th grade students gained awareness about intangible cultural heritage literacy skills.