Analysis of Children’s Songs in Terms of Values

Abstract

Children’s songs inspire the love of music in children and improve their musical skills and at the same time, teach national values and societal rules, contribute to their personality development, make children feel happier, foster interpersonal communication and particularly contribute to the cognitive and linguistic development of children at early ages. Children's songs, which take place almost every moment of children's life, play an important role in transferring values to children. There are many classifications of value education, but Schwartz's value classification is a very comprehensive and an accepted type of classification. In the literature research, no studies have been done to examine the children's songs in terms of values. In this context, the aim of the research is to examine the 59 children songs which were qualified to the finals at the Popular Children's Song Competition organized by Turkish Radio Television Corporation between 2004 and 2015 according to Schwartz's classification of values. Content analysis method and NVivo 11 Pro program were used in this research. According to the findings of this research, motivational types found in the analyzed songs are achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, conformity, and security. Among these motivational types, it is seen that the most emphasized and prominent values are a world at peace, a world of beauty, protecting the environment, enjoying life, unity with nature. In addition to these findings, there is no value for power and tradition motivational types.

Keywords: Children’s songs, values.