Özet:

This research was conducted to reveal the mental perceptions of high school students about the concept of homeland through metaphors. The universe of the study is the high school students and the sample of the study consists of 463 high school third grade (11th grade) students in 2017-2018 academic year from the following schools; Konya İsmil Anatolian İmam-Hatip (religious vocational) High School, Karatay Science High School, Afyonkarahisar Dazkırı Anatolian High School, Gaziantep Nuriye-Vasıf Onat Anatolian Girls’ High School, İstanbul Gazi Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School and Aksaray Taşpınar Anatolian High School. This research was planned to obtain deep information about the subject within the context of the pattern of phenomenology, which is one of the qualitative research designs, and the phenomenon of this study is the concept of "homeland". The data of the research was obtained by students’ completing the statements like “Homeland is like / similar to a … Because; …”. The data obtained in this study were analysed by using the content analysis technique. According to the findings of the study, students produced a total of 77 valid metaphors about the concept of homeland. These metaphors were then grouped under 12 different conceptual categories (homeland as an expression of sense of belonging, homeland as an expression of habit of body, homeland as an expression of a unifying element, homeland as an expression of necessity, homeland as an expression of source of life, homeland as an expression of identity, homeland as an expression of holiness, homeland as an expression of solidarity and indivisibility, homeland as an expression of love, homeland as an expression of refuge area, homeland as an expression of a place to hold and homeland as an expression of an element worth dying for) in terms of their common characteristics. As a result of the research, it was observed that the students constructed the concept of homeland correctly in their minds.

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