Educational Needs of Turkish High School Students on Gender Equality

ABSTRACT The aim of this research is to assess the educational needs of Turkish high school students on gender equality. Accordingly, a concurrent mixed model was adopted in order to discover perceptions of students on gender equality and whether they hold gender stereotypes and roles. In the quantitative part, ‘The Gender Perception Scale for Adolescents’ was applied to 780 students. In the qualitative part, interviews were carried out with 8 students, and a drawing technique was carried out with 20 students. The quantitative findings of the study showed that most of the students had an egalitarian perception of gender. Furthermore, perceptions of students vary significantly according to their sex, class level, school type and educational status of parents. However, qualitative findings showed that there were also students who had traditional views on gender and portrayed woman and man accordingly. Some of the students defined woman as feminine and man as masculine according to socially constructed characteristics, including emotions, thoughts, and behaviours. Despite this situation, there were some female students who criticised gender inequalities. Taken together with the fact that there is no curriculum that addresses gender equality in Türkiye, these results suggest that the educational needs of students on this issue have not been fully met. In this respect, the paper discusses how the Turkish National Education System can address gender inequality.