Middle School Students’ Devotion to Democratic Values

Abstract

Democracy as a political system aims to improve individuals’ welfare and is considered as a desirable regime for that reason. Even if it is defined in different ways pointing out various aspects based on time and cultural background of societies, it has some common values shared by every person like equality, respecting life, justice, freedom, honesty, the search for goodness, cooperation, self-esteem, tolerance, sensibility, responsibility, acceptance of difference and so forth. This study aimed to determine the devotion level of Turkish 8th grade students to democratic values. The sample of the study comprised of 448 8th graders attending middle schools located in Yozgat. In order to collect the necessary data Democratic Values Scale developed by İlgan et al. (2013) was used. According to the findings of the study, it was seen that Turkish 8th grade students adopted democratic values at a high level.

Keywords

• democracy
• democratic values
• middle school
• student
• demokrasi
• demokratik değerler
• ortaokul
• öğrenci