Ergenlik Döneminde Bulunan Öğrencilerin Aile İlişkilerinin Okul Yasamına Yansımaları ve Okul Sosyal Hizmeti

Abstract

The aim of this study is to understand how family relations and family functioning of adolescent students effect their education in school, and to find out social work roles in school settings to contribute solving school-related problems that students and their families face with. Mixed methods were used to design the research model. A total of 397 students from certain vocational high schools located in Altındağ, which is a central district of Ankara the Capital, participated in quantitative phase. Participants initially were asked to respond a survey which included questions about their socio-demographic information and their school-family context, then they were asked to respond McMaster Family Assesment Device to identify their perceptions of family functioning. In qualitative phase, 22 students who were selected from participants of quantitative phase and 8 school personnel including school counsellors and school administrators were interviewed for in-depth understanding of students’ school life, family relations, functioning of their families, family difficulties, and family-school interactions. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection was completed in the period of January 2017 – June 2017. While quantitative data were analyzed with IBM SPSS 23.0, qualitative data analysis was conducted through MAXQDA 2018. Findings derived from the quantitative phase of the study, the mean scores of the participant students for Family Assessment Device were greater than 2 in six out of the seven subscales. Therefore, students’ perceptions of family functioning indicated unhealthy family characteristics. It was revealed that variables including parental employment, father’s education level, perceptions of family relations, yearly average point, attitudes towards school, perceptions of relations with school friends and teachers, student-family cohesion on education, family support for education, family problems that affect school were effective on the subscales of Family Assessment Device. According to qualitative findings of the study, it was evaluated that students were mainly come from families of lower socio-economic status, has lower academic motivation and lower school engagement, and their main educational goal apparently was to somehow ix

graduate from the school. Other findings addressed that problematic and dysfunctional relationships were common in families, gender-based family structure was prominent, interactions between adolescents and families were limited, significant disadvantages of parent involvement were existed, and parents have low expectations from child’s education. In addition, participated school personnel emphasized that there were significant concerns about solving various problems of families, increasing family attention and support for their children at school, improving parental involvement, enhancing the level of family consciousness for education, marriage and child growing, and collaborating with social workers for all these matters. In accordance with overall research findings, it was concluded that the family life experiences of adolescent students is highly effective on their school life. In this respect, certain recommendations to solve problems of students and their families and enable more effective family-school partnerships have been presented in a framework for specific practice model based on school social work practices.