Abstract:

Imam Hatip Schools (IHS), which date back to the Second Constitutional Era, are educational institutions that were first opened to train officers who will carry out religious services instead of the madrasas that were closed with the Law of Unification of Education. Although these schools were closed in 1930 due to a lack of students, they were reopened in 1951 and continue to provide education uninterruptedly until today. However, since the date they were opened, issues such as the ratio of IHSs in the secondary education system, IHS curricula, and whether these schools will be accepted in vocational or general education have been among the most lively debates in education policies in Turkey. The purpose of this research is to reveal the reasons of students for choosing the school of Imam Hatip High School based on students’ opinions themselves. The research, which was designed in a quantitative cross-sectional survey model, was carried out with 6779 students from 103 Imam Hatip High Schools in 27 provinces in all 7 regions. “Reasons for IHS Preference Scale” was developed to collect data in the study. As a result of the validity and reliability analysis, the scale consisting of 13 items with two dimensions named “Contribution to educational spiritual development” and “Contribution to a career in the field” was calculated as Cronbach α=.911 and McDonald's ω= ,912. Research findings confirm that IHSs are perceived as a general academic secondary education institution rather than a vocational secondary education institution.

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