An Analysis on Mission Statements of Turkish Primary Schools: Similarities and Differences

Abstract

Mission statements are increasingly becoming an inevitable component of educational institutions. The main reason behind this can be attributed to the fact that they are determinants for the accreditation of schools in today’s competitive educational arena. Thus, gaining an insight into the emphasized concepts in mission statements of primary schools is essential since primary schools are the places where the education starts for every single individual. In this regard, the aim of this study is to provide a document analysis of mission statements of Turkish public primary schools which are governed by the Ministry of National Education. To achieve this, mission statements of 500 primary schools across Turkey were compiled; particularly schools from the Western and the Eastern parts of the country were randomly selected and included in the analysis. As well as the comparison between mission statements of schools located in two opposite sides of the country, a special attention was paid to whether any reference to language teaching and learning was available in the mission statements. The whole data were analysed via content analysis. The results give in-depth information about common and differing points among mission statements. The most common mission was found to be educating individuals who valued Ataturk’s principles and reforms underpinning the Turkish education system. Besides, a number of distinct missions were detected with regard to some targeted personality traits between the most cited points in missions of the Eastern and the Western schools. In terms of foreign language education, only a few references were revealed in mission statements of primary schools in Turkey.