Democratic Climate in Higher Education: The Case of a Turkish Public University

Author(s):

Omer Caliskan(presenting / submitting)Sibel Akin Cennet Engin-Demir

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 02 D, Social Responsibility: Participation and Democracy

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-23

15:15-16:45

Room:

NM-J104

Chair:

Paul Wakeling

Contribution

Expressed in the words of Dewey (1916), “A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience” (p. 87). Embedded in this perspective, democracy enables individuals to form a shared living by enhancing the communication of ideas across different communities (Ben-Porath, 2012). To teach individuals how to develop a democratic manner and promote the democratic values, education is an efficient way of equipping citizens with the necessary skills that advance democracy (Dewey, 1916; Gutmann, 1987).

In particular, higher education has a responsibility to strengthen the quality of democratic systems in addition to its role of pioneering the dissemination of scientific knowledge (Fiss, 2012). Colleges and universities are ideal sites for experiencing democratic citizenship (Thomas & Hartley, 2010) with their diverse student populations as different groups come together, air their voices, and establish common values such as respect and tolerance (Hamrick, 1998; Ross, 2014). Chomsky (2000) further argues that higher education institutions should be even subversive so that liberatory ideals could flourish through the educational system and create a vibrant democratic culture in the society.

Turkish democracy seems to be at risk as indicated by the low scores observed on different dimensions of Democracy Index such as civil liberties, having a mean score of 3.53 out of 10, and political participation and culture, having a mean score of 4.44 out of 10 (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2014). More specifically, Turkish higher education institutions seem to have a similar profile with the general trend as university students’ democratic attitudes are low or moderate (e.g., Karatekin, Merey, & Kuş, 2012). In a recent study (Dündar, 2013) conducted with the students of a leading Turkish university on democratic processes in their university setting, students pointed out that there was little room for them to participate to the decision-making processes. Moreover, they expressed that they did not want to articulate their opinions publicly for fear of being blacklisted and ethnically discriminated. Similarly, Özbilen (2014) reported that the students, who were actively engaged in the decision making process of the university administration, did not have any expectations that their university would have their voice for the prospective changes. It is evident that universities should provide a more democratic atmosphere to their members. In an attempt to address this, the current study, first and foremost, aims to understand the expectations of university students regarding a democratic university. Second, to understand how well universities advocate and prompt the democratic values, this study explores the university students’ perceptions of the university environment regarding democratic ideals. More specifically, it seeks to answer the following research questions:

1. What are the characteristics of a democratic university environment as perceived by university students?

2. Is there any significant difference among the dimensions of democratic principles (respect to ideas, participation to decision-making, and tolerance) as perceived by the university students regarding their university environment?

3. What are the effects of certain demographic variables (gender, attending a student club, reading newspaper, and home residence) on university students’ perceptions of their university environment regarding respect to ideas, participation to decision-making, and tolerance?

Considering that the Council of Europe Higher Education Series has a strong commitment to the core values of democracy and human rights along with the Lisbon Recognition Convention and Bologna Process and believes that higher education has a public responsibility for developing the democratic culture (Council of Europe, 2014), this study may offer a platform for policy debate in the higher education area in Europe by addressing the democratization of higher education in Turkey and highlighting the portrait of a democratic university.

Method

This study utilized quantitative research methodology. The data were collected from 1074 undergraduate students who were selected by stratified sampling from all faculties of a Turkish public university. Stratified sampling enables to maintain the same proportion of students from each strata - the faculties - in the sample as they are represented in the population (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2006). Accordingly, 4.9 % of the sample were from faculty of architecture, 15.9 % were from faculty of arts and sciences, 14.7 % were from faculty of economics and administrative sciences, 24.4 % were from faculty of education, and 40.1 % were from faculty of engineering. In addition, those students varied across the classes: preparation, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth year. Regarding the gender distribution, 51.7% of the students were female while 48.3% were male. Along with the certain demographical questions, two 5-point Likert-type scales were developed by the researchers: (1) Expectations about Democracy Scale (ranged from (1) ‘completely disagree’ to (5) ‘completely agree’ and (2) Perceptions of Democratic University Environment Scale (ranged from (1) ‘never’ to (5) ‘always’). For the instrument development, the opinions of three experts were asked and then the scales were revised. Afterwards, a pilot study was conducted with 245 students in the same university. Exploratory factor analyses revealed that the “Expectations about Democracy Scale” (e.g., “Individuals should feel secured in a democratic university.”) had one factor with a Cronbach’s alpha reliability of .92 while the “Perceptions of Democratic University Environment Scale” resulted in three factors: “respect to ideas” (e.g., "Faculty members respect to our ideas.”), “participation to decision-making” (e.g., "University administration and sub-administrative units value taking our opinions in decision making-processes."), and “tolerance” (e.g., "There is a dominant ideological pressure in the university, which tries to influence the individuals."). Their Cronbach’s alpha reliability indices were .59, .58, and .73 respectively with a Cronbach’s alpha reliability of .87 for the total scale. For the data analysis, first, the expectations of students regarding a democratic university were presented by descriptive statistics. Second, to explore whether there is a significant difference among the dimensions of the second scale (respect to ideas, participation to decision-making, and tolerance) regarding students’ perceptions of their university environment, one-way repeated ANOVA was conducted. Last, to examine the effects of certain variables (gender, attending student club, reading newspaper, and home residence) on the dependent variable (perception of democratic university environment), Two-Way MANOVA analyses were performed.

Expected Outcomes

First, the descriptive statistics showed that students’ expectation regarding a democratic university environment was quite high (M = 4.53, SD = .55). More specifically, the items with the highest mean scores were “Gender equality should exist in a democratic university.” (M = 4.76, SD = .67), “Individuals should feel secured in a democratic university.” (M = 4.74, SD = .63), and “All individuals have a right to access to university opportunities in a democratic university.” (M = 4.74, SD = .63). Second, the results of one-way repeated ANOVA revealed that there was a significant difference among the dimensions of selected university’s democratic environment - respect to ideas, participation to decision-making, and tolerance - as perceived by the students. Because the sphericity assumption was not met, the Huynh-Feldt values were checked. The main effect of the dimensions of democratic university environment was significant, F(1.999, 2140.747) = 125.57, p =.00, η2 =.11. Before comparing those dimensions, the alpha level was set at .016 by dividing .05 into three which is the number of compared groups. It was seen that the mean score of “respect to ideas” (M = 3.21, SD = .87) was significantly higher than that of “participation to decision-making” (M = 2.82, SD = .86) and that of “tolerance” (M = 2.97, SD = .65). Comparing the “participation to decision making” and “tolerance”, it was seen that the mean score of the former (M = 2.82, SD = .86) was significantly lower than the latter (M = 2.97, SD = .65). Last, two-way MANOVA analyses, at multivariate level, indicated that except “reading newspaper”, other independent variables (gender, attending a student club, residence) had a significant effect on the combination of “respect to ideas”, “participation to decision-making”, and “tolerance” regarding a democratic university environment. Subsequently, univariate analyses will be discussed later.

References

Ben‐Porath, S. (2012). Citizenship as shared fate: Education for membership in a diverse democracy. Educational Theory, 62(4), 381-395. Chomsky, N. (2000). Paths taken, tasks ahead. Profession, 32-39. Council of Europe (2014). Higher education and research. Retrieved from http://www.coe. int/t/dg4/highereducation/default_en.asp Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York, NY: Macmillan. Dündar, S. (2013). Demokratik unsurun bir öğesi olarak öğrencilerin karar süreçlerine katılımı [Students’ participation to the decision-making process as a tool for democratic school]. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 35, 853-875. Economist Intelligence Unit (2014). Democracy index 2014: Democracy and its discontents. Retrieved from http://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid =Democracy 0115 Fiss, O. M. (2012). The democratic mission of the university. Albany Law Review, 76(1), 2013. Fraenkel, J. R., & Wallen, N. E. (2006). How to design and evaluate research in education. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies. Gutmann, A. (1987). Democratic education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hamrick, F. A. (1998). Democratic citizenship and student activism. Journal of College Student Development, 39(5), 449. Karatekin, K., Merey, Z., & Kuş, Z. (2013). Öğretmen adayları ve öğretmenlerin demokratik tutumlarının çeşitli değişkenler açısından incelenmesi [Analysis of demmocratic attitudes of pre-service teachers and teachers in terms of some variables]. Kastamonu University Kastamonu Education Journal, 21(2), 561-574. Özbilen, D. (2014). Student views on classroom representative meetings in the preparatory program of a Turkish university. Journal of Teacher Education and Educators, 3(2), 227-244. Ross, S. N. (2014). Diversity and intergroup contact in higher education: exploring possibilities for democratization through social justice education. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(8), 870-881. Thomas, N. L., & Hartley, M. (2010). Higher education's democratic imperative. New Directions for Higher Education, 152, 99-107.

Author Information

Omer Caliskan (presenting / submitting)

Middle East Technical University, Turkey

Sibel Akin

Middle East Technical University

Department of Educational Sciences

Ankara

Cennet Engin-Demir