COMMUNICATING CULTURAL MEANING THROUGH CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: A REPRESENTATION-BASED ANALYSIS OF PIKTES BOOKS
Öz
Educational materials play a central role in shaping how learners encounter culture, yet research has focused on identifying cultural content rather than examining how cultural meanings are constructed. Addressing this gap, this study investigates how cultural representations are organized and communicated through the children's books developed within the Promoting Integration of Syrian Children into the Turkish Education System (PIKTES) project. Adopting a qualitative document analysis design, the study analyzed the ten-book Salih series using a representation-based analytical framework integrating Hall's theory of representation, Byram's intercultural communicative competence, and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. Directed content analysis, complemented by inductive thematic analysis, examined explicit and implicit patterns of cultural representation. The findings reveal that cultural meaning is constructed through interconnected representational systems rather than isolated cultural elements. Big-C culture, represented through traditions, cultural heritage, and social values, was consistently embedded within everyday routines, relationships, communication practices, and living environments characterizing small-C culture. This integration positioned culture as a lived process of social participation rather than cultural information. The study advances foreign language education by shifting the analytical focus from cultural content to cultural representation and offers a theoretically grounded framework for designing and evaluating culturally responsive materials in multilingual, refugee, and intercultural educational contexts.
Anahtar Kelimeler
- Cultural representation
- children's literature
- Turkish as a foreign language
- refugee education
- PIKTES
Etik Beyan
Kaynakça
- Alston, A. (2008). The family in English children’s literature. Routledge: United.
- Bagci, S. C., Baysu, G., Tercan, M., & Turnuklu, A. (2023). Dealing with increasing negativity toward refugees: A latent growth curve study of positive and negative intergroup contact and approach- avoidance tendencies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 49(10), 1466–1478. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221110325.
- Bölükbaş, F., & Keskin, F. (2010). Yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğretiminde metinlerin kültür aktarımındaki işlevi. Turkish Studies, 5(4), 221-235.
- Byram, M. (1997). Cultural awareness as vocabulary learning. The Language Learning Journal, 16(1), 51–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571739785200291
- Fişekcioğlu, A. (2022). Yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğretiminde Türk yemek kültürünün paylaşımı. Motif Akademi Halkbilimi Dergisi, 15(38), 514-533. https://doi.org/10.12981/mahder.1098836
- Fişekcioğlu, D. D. A. (2023). Türkçenin yabancı dil olarak öğretiminde kültür dilbilim kavramlarının toplum dilbilimsel yetkinliğin kazandırılmasındaki önemi: Vedalaşma örneği. UMAY Sanat ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 1(1), 18-27. https://izlik.org/JA69TB49CS
- Gultekin, Mehmet. (2022). A Multicultural Education Approach to Turkish Picture Books Written for Syrian Refugee Children. Multicultural Education Review, 14 (2). p101-119.
- Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage Publications, Inc; Open University Press.
Ayrıntılar
Birincil Dil
İngilizce
Konular
Türkçe Eğitimi
Bölüm
Araştırma Makalesi
Yazarlar
Bilge Nur Doğan Güldenoğlu
*
Türkiye
Yayımlanma Tarihi
28 Ekim 2026
Gönderilme Tarihi
24 Ağustos 2026
Kabul Tarihi
28 Ekim 2026
Yayımlandığı Sayı
Yıl 2026 Cilt: 10 Sayı: 3