Doğan Cüceloğlu’s Philosophy of Education in Context of His Speeches and Writing Works

Abstract

Educational philosophies direct the education of societies and, therefore, their future. Research has been carried out to determine the educational philosophy of many educators worldwide and in Turkey. However, no research has been found that reveals Doğan Cüceloğlu’s philosophy of education, who recently passed away, one of the academicians of our country. This study aims to determine the educational philosophy of Turkish psychologist and academician Doğan Cüceloğlu, who has tried to make sense of education and psychology together throughout his life. The current research is a qualitatively conducted grounded theory study. Doğan Cüceloğlu’s speeches and writings on education were carried out in the light of the data collected by the document analysis method. Data were collected by examining the books, articles, interviews, conversations, social media accounts, speeches, and TV programs he wrote and analyzed by coding. Questions of “Why, what, and how to teach?” were answered by making inferences from Doğan Cüceloğlu’s sentences. As a result of the research, it was understood that in terms of the purpose of education, Doğan Cüceloğlu’s educational philosophy is existentialism; in terms of the content of education, it is existentialism; in terms of method of education, it is progressivism and existentialism. It has been determined that Doğan Cüceloğlu’s perspective on education generally reflects existential understanding.

Keywords

• doğan cüceloğlu
• education
• educational philosophy
• grounded theory
• existentialism
• doğan cüceloğlu’s educational philosophy.