THE REFLECTIONS OF THE MEANINGS ATTRIBUTED TO THE INSTITUTION OF “FAMILY” ON MIND MAPS
Authors: ERGİN Büşra , ERGİN Esra , DEMİRSÖZ Mert 
Published: August 2022

Today, with the effect of modernization, important changes have occurred in family structures. Many factors such as the roles of individuals in the family, functions of the family, family structure, and intra-family communication have been affected by this change. The perspective of young adults towards the family is also significantly affected by this difference in family structures.In this study, it is aimed to examine the family perceptions of preschool teacher candidates through mind maps. 50 preschool teacher candidates, who took effective communication and parent education course, participated in the study designed with a qualitative research design. With the mind maps used as a data collection tool, the mental images of the preschool teacher candidates about the concept of "family" were tried to be determined. The themes obtained from the mind maps of preschool teacher candidates were grouped under seven headings. These titles are it was determined as "basic concepts about family types, basic concepts about family functions, basic concepts about family members, basic concepts about feelings towards family, basic concepts about family values, basic concepts about communication, basic concepts about elements that disrupt family unity". Major branches were taken as basis in determining the themes and sub-branches were used in determining the codes. In the creation of the codes, pictures and words were considered and the codes were placed within the relevant themes. In addition, the analysis results were expressed as frequency, frequency averages and percentages. The basic concepts associated with family types in the research; settlement, authority, size, biological and foster family themes. In this category, it was concluded that the theme that preschool teacher candidates predominantly included in their mind maps was family according to size. The themes created in the classification made according to family functions; biological functions, psychological functions, educational functions, social functions, cultural functions, economic functions. It was determined that the theme with the highest frequency was social functions. In the research, the basic concepts associated with family members were gathered under the nuclear family and extended family themes, and it was concluded that the nuclear family theme was more dominant. Emotions towards the family were categorized under the sub-themes of positive and negative emotions. It has been observed that positive feelings towards the family are given more place in the mind maps of pre-school teacher candidates. Themes for the basic concepts associated with the values of the family; power, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. Benevolence and tradition are the themes with the highest frequency in this category. Basic concepts associated with communication; attitudes, communication with the environment, communication within the family, technology tools, and outputs of correct communication. Among these themes, the themes with the highest frequency are; attitudes and family communication. It has been concluded that the basic concepts of lovelessness and incompatibility have the highest frequency in the category of elements that disrupt family integrity. In this study, mind maps were effective in revealing the family perceptions of preschool teacher candidates.