The National Ministry of Education included the "Family in Turkish Social Life" course in the middle and high school curriculum.
The course includes a curriculum of 72 hours at each level of middle school. It is included within the scope of elective courses and for high school by the General Directorate of Secondary Education and was approved by the Board of Education and Discipline.
The course in middle schools consists of four units: "The Importance of Family," "Being a Family," "Historical Process of the Turkish Family Structure" and "Social Change and Family."
The first unit focuses on the family institution, its importance, basic functions, parenting roles and the role of the family in the socialization process. Further, it will focus on the role of the family in a healthy social structure and gaining skills such as communication, problem-solving and empathy, and relations between the concepts of social status and role and the family will be established. In addition, it will focus on how deteriorations in family culture negatively affect the social structure, customs, traditions and traditions that contribute to the development of family values.
In the second unit, students will learn their own family history by interviewing family elders during classes. They will be encouraged to use documents such as family photographs, letters, marriage certificates, voice recordings and identity cards to learn the spiritual elements that hold the family together and the importance of being a family through literary works and their research.
Students will also be asked to research films, documentaries and literary works that involve events and situations that involve the family coming together, such as births, naming ceremonies, weddings, iftar dinners, a dinner to mark the breaking of the daily fast, and holiday celebrations.
In the third unit, students will learn about the family structure and cultural characteristics in different periods of Turkish history.
Characteristics and elements that shaped the family structure in the Central Asian Turkish states, the Seljuk Period and the Ottoman Empire will be explained. The lessons will focus on the effects of the Turkish Civil Code on the Turkish family structure, and the characteristics of the current family structure in Türkiye will be explained.
The last unit, "Social Change and Family" in the digital platforms curriculum, is aimed at students learning the effects of social change on the family institution over time and family relations on the digital platform based on Turkish social life.
The importance of protecting individual and family privacy on digital platforms will be emphasized in the course.
The Ministry has also devised a similar curriculum tailored for high school students. Those opting for the "Family Course in Turkish Social Life" will delve into the evolution of the Turkish family through history, gaining insights into the challenges modern life poses on its structure. Students will analyze present-day issues and work toward devising potential solutions.
In crafting the syllabus for the elective "Family in Turkish Social Life" course, pedagogical approaches like multiple intelligences, student-centered learning and skill-based education were incorporated to align with the constructivist learning model.
This elective high school course comprises four units: "Family as a Social Institution," "Historical Shifts in the Turkish Family Structure," "Evolution and Metamorphosis in Turkish Family Dynamics" and "Contemporary Challenges Confronting the Turkish Family Structure."
In the first unit, students will be enabled to research and make presentations on Turkish proverbs on the function of the family in values education, seeing parents as role models for children, and mother, father and child relationships.
In the second unit, the family, which forms the basis and core of the Turkish nation and social life, will be discussed in a historical context. The effects of the nomadic horseback lifestyle in the pre-Islamic period on the shaping of the Turkish family structure will be touched upon, and sample texts on family structure from Turkish epics composed in this period will be given.
The Turkish family structure, which experienced minor changes in the period after the acceptance of Islam, will be discussed in the light of verses and hadiths. Students will be helped to determine the rights and responsibilities of spouses toward each other in the context of the Prophet's Farewell Sermon.
In order to better understand the Turkish family structure of the period, in addition to the travelogues of Ibn Fadlan, Ibn Batuta and Evliya Çelebi, five great works of the transition period, namely the Dede Korkut Stories, Divanu Lügati't-Türk, Kutadgu Bilig, Atabetü'l- Hakayık and Divan-ı Hikmet are used. Selected sample texts will also be included.
In the lessons, the basic features of the family structure in the Seljuk and Ottoman periods will be explained, the legal regulations made in the fields of Turkish family structure during the Westernization and republic periods will be touched upon, and the changes in the family structure during the Westernization period will be conveyed to students through text quotations from stories and novels.
The phenomena of modernization, urbanization and migration will be discussed in the third unit, focusing on the effects of changes in the perception of values in the modern world on the family structure, and the effects of these changes on the social, economic, cultural and political structure of the society will be discussed.
The last unit focuses on addressing contemporary issues within the Turkish family structure. This segment delves into the present state of Turkish family dynamics, tackling issues prevalent in fractured families and proposing solutions. Discussions encompass the challenges faced by isolated elderly individuals, the integration of disabled members within families, and the impact of diverse value systems on the Turkish family structure.
