Turkish and American Female Sephardic Children among Turkish Children in the 1950s

Özet

The aim and scope of this research was to discover the games appreciated byTurkish Sephardic, American Sephardic and Turkish Muslim female children inthe 1950s, their environmental teachings, and transnationalism. Old people teachchildren games, which can also be transnational and narrated in other countries.Oral history interviews were conducted with these three groups of women, and theywere asked about the metaphors in their childhood games. These informal chats alsoled to the discovery of some games played by female children. Similarities of thesemetaphors were used to suggest a peace building theory based on environmentalhumanities. Accordingly, the metaphorical concepts in female children’s gameswere analyzed through the conceptual metaphor theory developed by Lakoff andJohnson (1980) for deciphering their environmentalist teachings and their impactson the formation of children. As the transnational nature of games makes oneunderstand that children would play together regardless of their creed and ethnicityin the 1950s, such games are recommended to be taught to today’s children whorarely play games outside their houses with other children. As a result of this study,it was found that conceptual metaphors based on the protection of the environmentwere similar in certain games regardless of children’s cultural backgrounds. The conceptual metaphors of “NATURE IS A MOTHER,” “ANIMALS ARE LOVE,”and “NATURE IS A SHELTER” were commonly used in these children’s games,and these similarities should be taught children by encouraging them to recognizeand adapt the concept of unity in diversity. Consequently, the crimes committedby children against animals should be prevented, and children should learn theways to preserve the environment and nature easily without damaging any plantsor animals. It is crucial to teach children similar games with similar elementsare played in different parts of the world. In these games, similar environmental,educative, and metaphorical objects and word games may also be used.