Özet:

This study seeks to explore the gift-giving behaviour of school administrators and teachers working in public and private primary schools in Turkey. In this context, it has been determined what kind of gifts are given to teachers by parents and students, when the gifts are given and how the gift-giving process is organized. In addition, the study investigated the views of teachers and administrators towards gifts. This study is designed as a phenomenological qualitative inquiry. The data of this study came from in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 14 teachers and 10 school administrators from public and private schools in Turkey by using the interview form developed by researchers. The inductive content analysis is used in data analysis. The results revealed that the gifts given to the teachers are listed as flowers, hand-made products of students, and jewellery. Besides, teachers are also offered small symbolic gifts, clothing, food, household goods, stationery, and cosmetics as gifts. The gifts are offered more often on special occasions, such as Teachers’ Day and graduation ceremonies. Although some parents/students prefer to give gifts to teachers individually, it has also been determined that the majority of them tend to arrange gifts as a whole group of parents. The process of collective gift-giving is largely organized by the class representative, but the WhatsApp application has also become more popular in terms of arranging the gifts.

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