The Situation of 5 th grade students living in cities and villages in respect of writing composition skills

m ABSTRACT The double social structure problem, which is a very common problem in every part of the world, reveals itself as a remarkable difference between urban and rural structure in our country. One of the developments and changes that have been noticed in many fields as Turkish Republic declared independency is rapid urbanisation, which has been revealed in parallel to the social and economical developments. The rural population, which once dominated the nation, today swings around 35%. The rapid development in cities and the decreasing population in rural areas affected the field of education as well. There are differences between life styles, social and economical levels and educational opportunities of the urban and rural areas. These differences increase day after day, giving the advantage to urban life. Thus, the gap between the education levels should be removed and equal educational opportunities should be provided to all citizens. The research, which takes the points mentioned above as its starting point, aims to determine the writing skill levels of children living in cities and villages, the effects of urban and rural lives on this skill. Social and economic conditions of the family, the social and school lives of the student and family relations are measured on 5th year students, in context of the environment and school life. The research has determined that there is a remarkable difference between the writing skills of the students living in urban and rural areas. The evaluation of composition skill studies has determined the average grade of the students in rural areas as 40, while it is 48 in urban areas. Although there is an obvious difference between the two groups, both could not achieve the average standard, which is 50%. While the students in urban areas have been remarkably more successful in 22 of the 27 behaviour that is listed in writing skills evaluation scale, the students in rural areas have been determined to be in an advanced level only in 2 behaviours. On the other hand there is not an obvious gap between the two groups in 3 behaviours. Moreover the answers to the survey questions points out that the students living in cities have more opportunities than those living in villages and the former ones have a more advanced level than the latter.IV There is an important difference between writing skills of the students living in rural and urban areas, which is determined by the social, economical and cultural conditions that are provided to the student and the family.