Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to determine and identify children’s perceptions on children’s rights through metaphors. The participants were asked to complete the sentence "If children’s rights are like…., fruit, color, game, cartoon/ cartoon character , it would be ................ because ....................." and to write three words that come to mind first when children’s rights are mentioned. All children participants were between 9-14 ages from elementary and secondary schools which were different socio-economic status in five cities. Data were collected during the fall semester of the 2015-16 school year. Subjects were 874 elementary school students selected on a voluntary basis from all class levels from primary education departments. A phenomenological research design with qualitative research methods and random sampling were used. The systematic metaphor was the specific qualitative analysis technique used. This qualitative study was based on collecting data by metaphors by survey forms and semi-structured interviews with 45 students under a triangulation method. The content analysis was used for the metaphors developed by children. These 496 metaphors in 94 different kinds were analyzed in nine different categories and results were interpreted. The results of the study indicated that the metaphorical perceptions of children that generally come to the children’s minds can be characterized as "Freedom for Children", “Children’s Basic Interest”, “Quality of Childhood” themes. Next, the words “Freedom”, “Peace” and “Love” were mentioned most often as words that came to the children’s minds firstly when they thought on the association of words related to children’s rights. It was inferred that the children have awareness but they did not actually experience much "in- depth knowledge” about children’s rights. Their rights consequently seemed to be affected by the attitudes and behaviors of their teachers and parents and by their own prejudice

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