Critical Thinking in Tales: The Case of Müskürümü Sultan / Masallarda Eleştirel Düşünme: Müskürümü Sultan Masalı Örneği

Abstract

Critical thinking is accepted as a key skill today and it is accepted as an important criteria to be gained for developing a democratic personality and a democratic society. This study argues that, paradoxically, there are both collective and critical ways of thinking in oral cultures; especially today, thinking about today and that the tale is an important cultural heritage in learning and internalizing critical thinking. Therefore, this study tries to show how an Anatolian tale contains critical ways of thinking. First of all, the literature on critical thinking has been scanned, then the tales in Pertev Naili Boratav’s Book of Fairy Tales -1-Uçar Leyli were scanned and the tale called Müskürümü Sultan, which was determined to reflect critical ways of thinking sufficiently, was chosen. The criteria and stages of critical thinking were created by using Gearld M. Nosich. In this article, Context-Centered Folklore Theory has adopted the Functional Folklore approach and simultaneously the information and data of the article obtained from the document review are interpreted according to this theory. The studies to be made about the development of the critical thinking skills, and accordingly, it suggests that more fairy tale research should be carried out and the use of fairy tales in the activities in which it is aimed to develop critical thinking skills in educational environments.

Keywords

• oral culture
• fairy tale
• müskürümü sultan
• critical thinking
• education