School Security: Reflected to the Press in Turkey

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reveal school safety problems in Turkey reflected to the newspaper topics. In this study which is designed according to qualitative research method, document analysis technique is used. A total of 362 news related to school security problems with the keyword of "school" in the 2017-2018 academic year constitute the data of this study which is accessed from the search engines of Hurriyet and Sabah newspapers. In the analysis of the data, content analysis was performed to determine the dimensions of the events that reflect the news about school security problems. In the content analysis, in accordance with the sub-objectives of the research; Analyzes were made based on the topics related to physical, psycho-social and external threats which are reflections of school safety problems. As a result of the analysis in regard to the physical security of schools; four different categories were reached: building, transportation, hygiene factors and security related to infrastructure. Building category is divided into two sub-categories namely outdoor and indoor categories. Outdoor category involves structural problems of the buildings while the indoor category deals with the emergency situation. In the case of psycho-social security, the events in newspapers were collected in five different categories as violence, abuse, suicide, substance abuse and security events related to negligence. In the sub-dimension of psycho-social security, it is observed that most of the security incidents are seen in the category of violence and abuse in schools; It is interesting to note that in these categories, harming of others and sexual harassment are the most intense security incidents in schools. Finally, events related to external threats in the schools were collected in seven different categories as follows: school environment events, school environment structure and system, abuse, psychological attacks, terrorism, burglary and violence. It is possible to say that the school-related incidents as a result of the sale of drugs and unhealthy foods and the theft of schools' equipment are the most common external threats.