Abstract:

The aim of this study is to determine how often Atatürk and his family are mentioned in school names in Türkiye. The data set of the research conducted in the descriptive survey model is all educational institutions with the status of “official school” affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in 81 provinces. 2078 schools named after Atatürk or any of his family members, which were accessed through the website https://mebbis.meb.gov.tr/KurumListesi.aspx, were analyzed using the content analysis technique. According to the findings of the study, the distribution of the number of schools named after Atatürk or family members according to regions is as follows: Marmara Region (f=383), Central Anatolia Region (f=338), Black Sea Region (f=310), Aegean Region (f=300), Mediterranean Region (f=283), Eastern Anatolia (f=238) and Southeastern Anatolia (f=226), while primary schools (f=770) and secondary schools (f=673) stood out in the distribution of these names according to school types, followed by kindergartens (f=315) and high schools (f=292). Anatolian high schools (f=148) and vocational and technical high schools (f=112) took the first two places in high school types. Atatürk was mentioned in 1832 of the school names examined, his mother Zübeyde Hanım in 223, his wife Latife Hanım in 11, his father Ali Rıza Efendi in 9, and his sister Makbule (Atadan) Hanım in 3. The 1832 schools named after Atatürk were evaluated under four categories: “name/surname”, “military service”, “leadership” and “teaching”. Within these categories, the most frequently used expressions in school names were “Atatürk” (f=1254), “Gazi” (f=255), “Mustafa Kemal” (f=90), “Gazipaşa” (f=70) and “Gazi Mustafa Kemal” (f=55).