Children’s Participation Rights in Elementary Schools’ Turkish Textbooks

Abstract

Textbooks are major instructional tools playing an important role at all grades of educational system. The participation rights of children can be defined as the rights to ensure a place to children in family, school and society. This study aimed to put forward and compare the allocation level of the participation rights issues of Turkish student textbooks in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades. For this aim, eight Turkish student textbooks were examined using content analysis method. In the study, participation rights of children were determined as the analysis unit. This analysis unit was divided into two sub-categories as “right to express
opinions and to participate in decisions” and “right to set up an association and to meet peacefully”. Frequencies and percentages were used to describe the data.