Evaluation of the Child Book “Melody” by Turkish Preservice Teachers in Terms of Child Rights

The purpose of the present study was to analyse and evaluate a book considering suitability with children's rights. More specifically, it was aimed to answer the research problem of “To what extend is the book named Melody suitable for child rights according to Turkish pre-service teachers?” in detail. The present quantitative study was designed based on descriptive research model. The sample of the present study was composed 105 sophomore pre-service teachers enrolled in Turkish teacher education program. They were selected based on criterion sampling strategy. The data were collected through “Text Evaluation Scale for Child Rights” developed by Söylemez (2018). The quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistical techniques such as arithmetic mean, mode, frequency, percentage, and standard deviation. Moreover, normality of the data was tested by skewness-kurtosis coefficient and Komogorov-Simirnov test. The findings were reported based on pre-service teachers’ evaluations of the book related to a child excluded from school activities because of her disability. Based on findings, it was observed that pre-service teachers could evaluate the book with respect to children's rights through a literary book effectively.


Introduction
Right is a concept that includes the interests of the individual to be protected and the protection of the individual by law. Basically, every person has rights (freedom, citizenship, residence, travel, etc.) determined by the laws and conventions. Moreover, values and morals referring to ethics have importance and significance for organizations and society (Grigoropoulos, 2019). Child rights, which should be considered within the concept of human rights, are also determined by the international conventions. United Nations composed a convention consisting of 54 items which "indicates that the necessity to behave the child exclusively was determined by Child Rights (especially Article 10), and the foundations of specialized organizations and international organizations dealing with the well-being of the children (UNICEF 1989). This convention was confirmed by the United Nations General Assembly on November 20 th , 1989 and came into force on September 2 nd , 1990 in order to protect the rights of the child. 142 countries including Turkey signed this convention. Human rights as a critical issue must be taught to the students and take its place in education. Based on this issue, there have been research examining human rights education in the literature (Bajaj, 2004;Balton, 1992;Charles, 1991;Flowers and Shiman, 1997;Hornberg, 2002;Lohrenscheit, 2002;Magendzo, 1994;Meintjes, 1997).
When we examine human life by dividing it into stages in terms of its characteristics, the time from birth to the age of two is considered as infancy, and the time from two to adolescence (up to the age of 15) is considered as childhood (Gürel, Temizyürek and Şahbaz, 2007;Oğuzkan, 2010;Şahin, 2014). The United Nations' Child Rights Convention considers every person up to the age of eighteen as a child (MEB (MoNE)1991). A person who has not completed the age of 18 is a child according to structure, enabled the families to pay more attention to the development of the children and this has been a factor in shaping the period. This process, which started with the caring of the child in the family, provided to focus on the education of the child. Education plays a fundamental role in the social, psychological and linguistic development of the child. Reading has an active role in language development and mental development, thus reading materials were needed for reading. In the past, among the works written for adults, the ones suitable for children were chosen, but these works did not meet the needs of the children in many ways. This paved the way for the creation of a literature specific to children.
Children's literature is the general name of the works that enrich the emotions and thoughts with artistic linguistic and visual messages and increase the level of appreciation in accordance with the language development and comprehension levels of children in a life stage starting from early childhood to adolescence (Sever, 2010: 17). Children's literature is a sub-branch of literature that includes literary works that meet the interests and needs in childhood of human life. Literature presented to the children is a specific field, basic principle of which is "suitability for the children" (Arıcı, 2016;Dursunoğlu, 2015;Gürel et al., 2007;Oğuzkan, 2010;Sever, 2010;Şirin, 2007a;Turan, Gerez and Taşkın, 2018). Suitability for the child is a principle based on the creation of oral and written texts that appeal to the children's own world, can understand the children, and their needs without being superior to them, is suitable for their developmental level, and respond to their interests and needs.
Children's literature has two subjects, one is child and the other is literature (Arıcı, 2016). A child is a person aged between 2 and18. From the moment babies are born, they tend to understand, recognize and learn everything around them through their mother tongue. This curiosity also constitutes the basis of children's development in childhood. Literature is the written and verbal expression of feelings, thoughts and dreams (Kıbrıs, 2002: 1). The basis of both literature and language teaching is text. The text is a set of strings produced verbally or in written form by one or more people in a certain communication context (Günay, 2007: 44). The text is also the basic material needed in language teaching. The main factor in the development of reading skill is again the texts.
The development of reading skill depends on the inclusion of qualified children's literature products in the selection of texts in Turkish course books (Dilidüzgün, 2004). For this reason, the reference source for language teaching and the development of reading skills should be the texts that address the child's world, understand the child and protect his/her rights. The child who encounters with reading and writing makes sense of the world through written texts and forms his/her mental concepts (Eryaman, 2008). The child who learns in this way is curious about everything (Sever, 2013). The child who gets acquainted with reading and writing makes sense of the world through written texts and forms his mental concepts. It is adults' task to bring the children together with works that will make them wonder, respond to their needs, contribute to their development, and raise their curiosity.
Because the child is a vulnerable individual whose reasoning ability has not yet developed and who cannot distinguish between right and wrong. They are open to any data presented to them and are exposed to them. For this reason, it is not possible for children to know their rights, to protect themselves and to make decisions about their own lives. Therefore, the texts to be used in education should be precise and proper for the children in terms of children's rights. When the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child is examined in terms of content, it can be said that it is structured on the themes of "Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities", "Family Environment and Care", "Basic Health and Welfare" and "Citizenship Rights and Freedoms" (Yurtsever, 2009: 67).
According to the text, every child who was born has the right to be cared for by their parents by taking the name given by them. In such cases that the parents cannot manage to take care for the children, the state is obliged to provide the necessary conditions. It is stated in the text that the children have freedom of religion and conscience, can freely express their opinions, and participate in any artistic activities. The signatory states of the convention have guaranteed to maintain it. The contract, which guarantees many rights that will ensure the development of children starting from living, which is the most fundamental right of the children, accepts children as separate individuals with their own rights, freedoms and boundaries and takes them under protection (Söylemez, 2018).
The book titled "Melody" is about the story of a special child who has found herself on today's bestseller list. She is an eleven-year-old girl named Melody. Melody cannot speak or use her arms and feet because of her illness. However, she goes to school with the effort of her family since she does not have a mental disability. She shows a performance that surpasses her peers in a quiz held at school, and this increases her commitment to life. The team, who have to leave the region for the last quiz program, get on the plane without telling Melody. They have in mind from the very beginning that a disabled individual does not participate in such a competition. The author makes the reader feel this throughout the plot. But the last incident clearly reveals this idea. They fail the quiz held in the region that Melody did not participate in. This book, which especially appeals to secondary school students in terms of its subject and style, was carefully read by Turkish preservice teachers and attracted considerable attention in terms of focusing on a disabled child who is subjected to injustice.
It is thought that it is important to examine such a book in terms of children's rights for teachers who are expected to be sensitive about the injustices suffered by children. It is considered that it is crucial to examine such a book in terms of children's rights with preservice teachers who are expected to be sensitive about the injustices that children suffer. Within this framework, the aim of the study is to evaluate the book named "Melody" in terms of suitability with children's rights. For this purpose, the problem statement of the study was determined as follows: "To what extend is the book named Melody suitable for child rights according to Turkish preservice teachers?"

Design of the Research
The study was designed using descriptive research model, one of the quantitative research designs. "Scanning models aim to depict and describe a past or ongoing event as it is. What is vital here is to observe the event properly and to reveal the results" (Karasar, 1991: 77). Descriptive research is useful to represent the properties, views and characteristics of the participants (Rubin and Babbie, 2008;Thomlison, 2001). In this study, using this model, it is aimed to reveal the examinations and evaluations of Turkish teacher candidates to what extent a work is about children's rights and how it reflects children's rights. In other words, it has been revealed that how Turkish preservice teachers deal with children's rights in the book titled "Melody" in a quantitative method.

Data Collection
The "Text Evaluation Scale for Child Rights" developed by Söylemez (2018) was used as a data collection tool in the study conducted through descriptive research. While the lowest score that can be obtained from this five-point Likert type assessment instrument consisting of 40 items was 40, the highest score was determined as 200. The internal consistency value of the assessment instrument was determined by Söylemez (2018) as α = .901, α = .822 for the author sub-dimension and α = .834 for the content sub-dimension.
In order to provide reliability of the instrument using in the current study, Cronbach Alpha coefficients were calculated. Based on these calculations, it was observed that similar results were observed in the findings of the researcher. These values can provide evidence that the instrument was valid and reliable for using in the present study.  (Özdamar, 1999;cited in Tavşancıl, 2006: 29).
When Table 1 is examined, it is seen that both the whole scale and the author and content sub-dimensions are quite reliable according to the Cronbach Alpha coefficient.

Data Analysis
The obtained data were analysed according to descriptive statistical methods such as frequency, mean and standard deviation values with the help of SPSS program. First of all, whether the scores obtained by the pre-service teachers from the scale show normal distribution was examined using tests such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov. In addition, whether the pre-service teachers' scores show normality according to the dimensions of the scale was tested by calculating the skewness-kurtosis coefficient. Moreover, pre-service teachers' responses to the scale and their book reviews were analysed using descriptive statistical techniques such as arithmetic mean, mode, frequency, percentage, and standard deviation.

Population and Sample
While the population of the study was composed of Turkish preservice teachers, the sample was determined as 2 nd grade students of Bartın University and Süleyman Demirel University. The sampling method was determined by criterion sampling technique, which is one of the purposeful sampling methods, and the study was based on voluntariness. The criteria used in the selection of samples were determined as taking the "Children's Literature" class and having read the book "Melody". The study was carried out with volunteer participants having these criteria. In other words, it was conducted with 105 pre-service teachers who voluntarily participated in the study. The gender status of the participants in the sample is given in the table below:

Findings
In order to determine the necessary statistical processes, it is necessary to evaluate the normal distribution of the sample. In cases where the sample size is more than 50 people, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is the best test for normality test (Sarstedt and Mooi, 2014). For this reason, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was applied and the results obtained are given below.  According to the results in the descriptive statistics table, the average score obtained from the scale was 154.33, the median was 155, the peak value was 164 and the standard deviation was 10.049.
When Table 3 is examined, it is seen that mean scores, mode, and median values are close to each other. When we look at the kurtosis and skewness values in the table, we can say that the scores show a normal distribution. Kurtosis and skewness values between -2 and +2 indicate that the data are distributed normally (George and Mallery, 2003). According to the results in Table 5, the mean score obtained from the "Author" subdimension of the scale was 3.90, the median was 4, the peak value was 4, and the standard deviation  According to the results in Table 6, the mean score obtained from the "Content" subdimension of the scale was 3.84, the median was 3.42, the peak value was 3, and the standard  The arithmetic mean ranges based on the evaluation of the research findings, considering the calculation of the interval width of the scale with the formula "range / number of groups to be applied" (Tekin, 2002) are in the form of; 1.00-1.80; "Strongly disagree", 1.81-2.60; "Disagree", 2.61-3.40; "Neither Agree nor Disagree", 3.41-4.20; " Agree" and 4.21-5.00; "Strongly agree".
Since the research is about the evaluation of the children's literature work named Melody, when it comes to evaluating the text, it was deemed appropriate to revise the options as follows within the scope of expert opinions. When Table 8 is analysed, while collecting data, the options suitable for the five-point Likert type from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree" are revised in the same direction from "very weak" to "very strong" and is suitable for the five-point Likert type in the analysis section where it is evaluated whether the text aims at children's rights. Thus, the data will be reflected on the text and interpreted more easily and clearly. When Table 9 is examined, it has been determined that the scores for the book named Melody on children's rights (out of 5) are at the arithmetic average of 3.85 and at the level of "Disagree". In other words, it can be stated that the statue of the book for children's rights is at a "strong" level.
When the work is evaluated, it is seen that the highest score in terms of arithmetic mean is item 18 (x = 4.57) and the 10% with the highest score are the 14 th (x = 4.43), 6 th (x = 4.40) and 10 th (x = 4.38) items, respectively. In this case, it can be said that the book does not demonstrate child as a sexual object and does not include images that will cause children to abuse, on the contrary, it can be said that the book features a content in which parents guide children and allow them to express their opinions freely.
While evaluating the text, it is seen that the lowest score was given to the 28th item (x = 2.81). It is seen that this item is in the form of "there is a positive discrimination towards handicapped children." and no strong content has been created for this. It is observed that the 30 th (x = 2.97), 31 st (x = 3.00), and 13 th (x = 3.17) items are respectively in the 10 with the lowest score.
The item average scores correspond to the "medium" level can be evaluated as positive and also it is important in terms of revealing the weaknesses of the work in terms of children's rights. Although it is at a "medium" level in terms of expressions that may violate children's rights, the visuals contribute positively to child development, and expressions that attack the child's honour and dignity, it can be said that the book falls behind in terms of other features.  Items below the general  average  2 , 4, 5, 7, 13, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 39, 40 3.4133 Items above the general average 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 4.1253 When Table 10 is examined, it is seen that the number of the items above the general average is higher and the average of these items is x = 4.12. Since the average of the items below the general average is x = 3.41 and it can be considered as strong" in both groups, the book titled Melody can be considered as a suitable book for children's rights. When Table 11 is examined, pre-service teachers' perceptions of the book named Melody on children's rights do not show a significant difference according to gender (t (103) = -1.018, p> 0.05).

Item Numbers
Perceptions of the female pre-service teachers (for X = 3.94) regarding the work's being about children's rights are more positive than the perceptions of male teacher candidates ( = 3.76). When Table 12 is examined, it is seen that the average score (x = 3.84) obtained from the content sub-dimension is at the "strong" level. This reveals that the content of the book titled Melody is written in a strong compliance with children's rights, in other words it does not violate children's rights. Looking at the highest and lowest average item scores shown in Table 9 before in the findings, it is seen that both groups belong to the content sub-dimension. It is a quite positive circumstance that the items with low scores are at the "medium" level in terms of the content of the work. Nevertheless, focus group interviews were conducted to reveal weak points of the content. Compared to the others, the participants, who stated that they gave a lower score to item 28, but a high score to item 29 due to the realistic view of the author against the negative attitudes of society towards disabled children, stated that the book does not privilege disabled individuals, but it supports them to be active in life.
This shows that there is a consistent view in the text and that there is no negative situation.
It is seen that the average score (x = 3.90) obtained from the author sub-dimension is at the "strong" level and higher than the content sub-dimension. It can be claimed that the author of the book (Sharon M. Draper) is sensitive enough to children's rights and has a writer's attitude in this direction. In the evaluations of the author, it was observed that the 39 th item (raising awareness of children against harmful habits) and 40 th item (the author's criminal history regarding children's rights) were below the general average of the scale. As a result of the focus group interviews, the middle level determination regarding the 39 th item is due to the content of the book, and the "medium" determination regarding the 40 th item is due to the fact that the participants are indecisive and mark a medium value since it requires a research about the author.

Conclusion and Discussion
The book titled Melody is about a disabled child who is subjected to injustice. It is taken into consideration that the rights and freedoms recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Conventions of Human Rights are accepted and declared for everyone without any discrimination. In this respect, the fact that an individual is disabled does not constitute an obstacle to participation in competitions and events. The article of the International Convention, published in the Official Gazette No. 27288, is expressed as "Establishing organizations for disabled people that represent them at international, national, regional and local levels and ensuring their involvement in these organizations". The book is about a child who is tried to be excluded from school activities because of her disability. In this study, it is aimed that pre-service teachers can evaluate on children's rights through a literary book.
In the evaluation of the book titled Melody, the item "In the text, the idea of free medical support for children is supported" received a high score. Because the participation of disabled people in social life is a content that has a positive message in terms of trying to find the necessary equipment.
However, the item "child/ children have been cared by their parents in the text" is criticized for being left to the family to meet the needs of the child to a large extent. This situation puts the family in a difficult situation occasionally. In this respect, it is important in terms of leaving the responsibility to the family in the text, and even the family trying to acquire the communication tool that the child needs.
The item " In the text, child is given a chance to express his/her opinion freely via an instrument he/she will choose " was realized in line with the efforts of the family to provide the appropriate means. The protagonist got the chance to express herself by being included in the school environment with the encouragement of his family and the ones around. Ulutaşdemir (2007) pointed out that it may be difficult for a child who lives in separate educational institutions away from normal living environments and who spends most of the time at school among disabled children like herself, may be difficult to adopt such behaviours. In this sense, the message of the book is important that the children should be educated at the same level as their peers and be successful like their peers.
In the outcomes of the text evaluation process, it is understood that there is no equal opportunity in education in terms of the features of the text. The disability of the protagonist prevents his participation in the quiz program. The text includes some points that violate children's rights. At this point, the author gives messages in the text about the protection of child rights. Additionally, it was determined that the item " In the text, there is a positive discrimination towards handicapped children" was not present. On the other hand, the item " In the text, there is an approach about the active participation of the disabled children to the society " is supported in the book. In this respect, the given message is that the society will not provide convenience to disabled people, but they can achieve success more actively in the society. When evaluated in terms of positive discrimination based on this realistic assessment that can be seen throughout life, it may cause despair for the disabled person to stay in the back due to their disability.
It is observed that the child is regarded as a child, the reactions are conveyed through child's point of view, s/he is not shown as a sexual object, there are no visuals that will cause child abuse, and an environment is created where parents are guiding and can express their opinions freely. The point that the author wants to draw attention to is that the protagonist is exposed to an atmosphere of exclusion by her friends and the school administration because of her disability. It is seen that there is no different abuse here.
The lowest scoring items are " In the text, the child is imaged as a sex object " and " Some visuals which could cause child abuse were used in the text". These items are interpreted as the book does not include sexual content. Güzelyurt (2020) found out that in the illustrated children's books he examined, such contents as, respectively, protection from sexual abuse, sexual questions and body recognition were given the most attention. This sensitive issue needs to be positioned correctly in order to perform sexual education correctly and appropriately. Previous studies have emphasized that sexual education should be told students and they should be taught how to protect themselves (Balter, Van Rhijn and Davies, 2016). Deniz and Gözütok (2017) identified the examples of gender discrimination in the books they examined. Touriane (2015) draws attention to the fact that the characteristics of a person, including such concepts as sexuality and historical memory, emerge when s/he becomes conscious of them. In this respect, it is positive that sexuality is not reflected in a child book.
The items "Some statements/expressions which violate child rights were located in the text." and " In the text, there is an offense to child's honour and dignity of the text discussed in the evaluation received the lowest scores. In his study, Sever (2002) criticizes the possibility of encouraging children who experience significant deprivation as a result of the subject in the novel to identify with wrong examples. Dağlıoğlu and Çamlıbel-Çakmak (2009) criticize the story books they examined for being constructed with characteristics far from children's thought systems and including characters that they could identify with, and to diversify and develop from the fears of violent phenomena they see in their environment, instead of protecting children from them. Today, underlying reason of the perception of violence is that there are elements of violence in child books. Kara (2007) states that the fantasy children's books that hold reading records hide the violence element by showing them as images and it is an intended situation. In this sense, it is notable that the book does not reflect violence.