The narratives of 1970s’ primary schools’ children in Turkey: Childhood and remembering the past

Mehmet Saglam

Bozok University, Faculty of Education, Department of Pre-School Education, Yozgat Turkey

E-mail: mehmet.saglam@bozok.edu.tr; msaglam72@gmail.com; Phone:  0 354 2421025/2651; Cell: 533 4371789

(This article was presented at Virginia Humanities Conference, March 2012)

Accepted  01 March, 2013

In this study, I am trying to display the narratives about the 1970’s primary school childrens including their childhood and their past through using the center-periphery and gender variables. The article aims to indicate the students’ childhood, their primary school education passing in poverty, their games and memories. I have made interviews with the people who used to be students in the primary school in the 1970s. Their experiences are to be put into context by taking into account the center-periphery and gender variables which become decisive in understanding and evaluating their narratives. Remembering their childhood, their poor life conditions, the games they played and their memories in the school is very important for us to understand their past. Thus, these narratives help us see not only how their school experiences reappear now but also in what circumstances their childhood was. I believe that center-periphery and gender as significant variables reveal how different their childhood and past.

Keywords: narrative, childhood, education, gender, center-periphery