Abstract

The purpose of the research was to reveal elementary 8th grade students’ opinions concerning democracy with the aid of metaphors. The students were asked to produce metaphors about the concept of democracy. 140 students from 3 public schools in Ankara (Turkey) participated in the research. 55% of the students were females and 45% were males. The students who participated in the research were asked to produce a metaphor about the concept of democracy and to explain these metaphors. To realize the purpose of the study, forms were distributed to the students asking them to complete the sentence, “Democracy is like… because…” and 56 students out of 140 produced 32 valid metaphors. Phenomenology was used for the purposes of the present research. Data obtained from the participants were interpreted via content analysis. The produced metaphors were divided into 4 categories: “Democracy as the symbol of equality”, “Democracy which exists with rules”, “Democracy which teaches living together” and “Democracy as a dream”. The findings were discussed in the light of the related literature.

Key words: Democracy, metaphor, elementary students