Representations of Agency and Children’s Rights in Contemporary Children’s Literature in Türkiye: A Close Reading of Two Collections

Öz

This article provides a number of exemplars from children’s literature in Türkiye to explore conceptions of agency and children’s rights. Building on the arguments that children’s literature must take children’s reality into account, the books analyzed in this paper portray the child as an individual with his/her own preferences and decisions. They also exemplify how children’s literature in Türkiye has historically evolved from a highly dogmatic and pedagogic viewpoint to a more contemporary one with an artistic and aesthetic nature. Therefore, this article employs a qualitative textual analysis to examine how children’s rights and agency as well as childhood are constructed in the selected texts. Children Have Rights by Süleyman Bulut raises awareness about basic rights of children for education, health, accommodation, and self-expression as well as issues about discrimination and children’s participation. The second book, a fairy tale collection called Children’s Rights Through Fairy Tales by Yücel Feyzioğlu, is an early example in Türkiye that discusses rights of children through child characters. Critically examining notions of childhood and agency in children’s literature, this paper will reveal a key finding that contemporary children’s literature in Türkiye increasingly portrays children as active agents capable of making decisions.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• agency
• children's rights
• children's literature
• Turkey
• child reality

Türk Çağdaş Çocuk Edebiyatında Özne ve Çocuk Hakları Temsilleri: İki Öykü Derlemesinin Yakın Okuması

Öz

Bu makale Türk çağdaş çocuk edebiyatında temsiliyet ve çocuk hakları kavramlarını inceleme amacıyla iki öykü derlemesinden örnekler sunmaktadır. Çocuk edebiyatının çocuk gerçekliğini hesaba katması gerektiği savından hareketle, bu makalede incelenen öyküler çocuğu kendi tercihleri ve kararları olan bir birey olarak tasvir etmektedir. Ayrıca, Türk çocuk edebiyatının zaman içerisinde son derece dogmatik ve pedagojik bir bakış açısından, sanatsal ve estetik bir yapıya sahip daha çağdaş bir bakış açısına nasıl sahip olduğunu da göstermektedir. Bu sebeple, çalışma seçilen eserlerde çocukluğun yanısıra çocuk hakları ve eylemliliğinin nasıl inşa edildiğini nitel metin analizi methoduyla inceleyecektir. Süleyman Bulut’un Çocukların Hakları Var adlı beş kitaptan oluşan derlemesi çocukların eğitim, sağlık, kendini ifade etme gibi temel hakları ile ayrımcılık ve çocuk katılımı konularında farkındalık yaratmaktadır. Yücel Feyzioğlu’nun Masallarla Çocuk Hakları adlı masal derlemesi ise çocuk haklarını çocuk karakterler kullanarak ele alan Türkiye’deki erken örneklerden biridir. Çocuk edebiyatında çocukluk ve eylemlilik kavramlarını eleştirel bir perspektiften inceleyen bu çalışma çağdaş Türk edebiyatında çocuk karakterlerin kara verme yetisine sahip bireyler olarak temsil edilmesinin artmakta olduğunu ortaya çıkaracaktır.

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