Cumhuriyet İlahiyat Dergisi

Öz

This study aims to
determine the perceptions of Imam Hatip High School students regarding Imam
Hatip High School, Imam Hatip High School Vocational Course Teacher and Imam
Hatip High School Administration via metaphors. In the study,
phenomenological design, one of the qualitative research designs, was used. The
study group, which was determined by criterion sampling, which is one of the
purposive sampling methods, consists of 412 students studying in 9th and 12th
grades in 5 different Imam Hatip High Schools in 2018-2019 academic year. The
data of the study were collected from the participants by completing these
sentences: “Imam Hatip High School is like… because…”, “Imam Hatip High School
Vocational Course Teacher is like… because…” and “Imam Hatip High School
Administration is like… because…”. The Inductive content analysis technique was
used to identify the metaphorical language in the analysis of the data
obtained. Themes/categories created as a result of content analysis were
analyzed in frequency, percentage, and cross-table in SPSS program. According
to the research, it was determined that students’ perceptions regarding Imam
Hatip High School and Imam Hatip High School vocational Course Teacher were
positive; on the other hand, the perceptions regarding the Imam Hatip High
Administration were negative. Besides, the metaphoric perceptions of male
students, students who graduated from imam hatip secondary school and 9th-grade
students were determined to be more positive.

Summary: The primary
purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions of Imam Hatip High School
students related to Imam Hatip High School, the vocational course
teacher and administration of  Imam Hatip High School via
metaphors. Imam Hatip High Schools, which are in Turkish educational system,
were opened in 1924 and are the secondary education institutions that educate
the students for both the profession and higher education. On average, 40% of
the lessons in the curriculum are religious vocational, and 60% of them are
cultural. Vocational course teachers teach occupational courses. In the
administration of these schools, there are both the vocational course teachers
and teachers from different branches. By the academic year 2018-2019 in Turkey,
11% of the students attending high school prefer these schools.

This study was planned
in the phenomenological (phenomenology) design, which is among the qualitative
research designs. The study group which was determined through the criterion
sampling of the purposive sampling methods consists of 412 students who
received their education at 9th and 12th grades at five different Imam Hatip
High Schools in 2018-2019 academic year. The research data were gathered via
the metaphors, which were used as the data collection technique in qualitative
research. The research data came from the following sentences of the
participants  “The Imam Hatip Highschool is like ……….; because……….”,
“The Imam Hatip Highschool Vocational course teacher is like………; because……”,
“The administration of Imam Hatip Highschool is like…….; because………”. The
inductive content analysis method was used in the analysis of the data. The
themes/categories (positive/negative) which were made as a result of the
content analysis were analyzed as frequency, percentage, and cross-table in
SPSS program.

It was observed in the
research that the students produced 140 metaphors related to The Imam Hatip High
School, 147 metaphors related to the vocational course teachers and 161
metaphors related to the administrators. As a result of the analysis of the
metaphors that they produced, it was understood that they gather metaphors
fundamentally in two categories as positive and negative.

Approximately
two-thirds of the students (63,3%) who participated in the research produced
the positive metaphors (93) related to The Imam Hatip High School, while about
one-third of them (36,7%) produced the negative metaphors (47). It was observed
that the most repeated metaphors which were positively produced are “Our House
(33/8,01%)”, “Family (24/5,83%)”, and “Quran Course (14/3,40%)”; the most
repeated negative metaphors are “Jail/Prison (76/18,45%), “General high school
(12/18,45%)” “A bad place (6/6%)”. According to these results, it can be
inferred that more than half of the students have a positive metaphoric
perception related to The Imam Hatip High School. It was observed that the
female students perceived The Imam Hatip High Schools more negative than the
male students.

It was determined that
one-fifth of the students (22,6%) participating in the research produced
negative (49) metaphors whereas three out of four of them (77,4%) produced
positive (98) related to the vocational course teachers. It was observed that
the most repeated metaphors among the positive are “He/She is a good person
(34/8,25%)”, He/She is like a sister/brother (32/7,77%)”, “Family (31/7,52%)”;
the most repeated metaphors as negative are “He/She is a bad person
(10/2,42%)”, “Other teacher (7/1,70%)”,  “Boring (6/1,46%)”. This
finding indicates that most of the students have a positive metaphoric
perception related to the vocational course teachers.

It was determined that
two-thirds of the students (65%) produced the negative metaphors (94) while
one-third of the students (35%) produced the positive metaphors (67) related to
the administrators. It was observed that the most repeated metaphors among the
positive metaphors are “Family (22/5,34%)”, “He/She is a good person
(14/3,40%)”, “He/She is a self-disciplined person (7/1,70%)”; the most repeated
negative metaphors are “He/She is a guardian (32/7,77%)”, “He/She is an extreme
self-disciplined person (30/7,28%)”, “He/She is a bad person 30/7,28%)”.Remarkably,
the other metaphors given by the students are the ones with force such as
“dictator, oppressor, police, jail, head of jail, acrimonious, oppressor dad,
hall of court, commander, detective, military service.” The data can infer that
the administrators are perceived negatively by more than half of the students;
the administrators create a public opinion as oppressive educators in the
students’ minds. In the research, it was seen that the female students (77%)
have more negative perceptions regarding the administration of school rather
than the male students (41,3%).

As a result, it is
observed that IHH students’ metaphoric perceptions related to their schools and
vocational course teachers have a positive aspect. Still, their opinions
related to the administrators of school are negative. From this point of view,
it can be inferred that it is necessary to make different studies on the
students’ perceptions related to the administrators.