Gender separation Turkish teenagers’ biggest hindrance to love.

Gender separation Turkish teenagers’ biggest hindrance to love.(HD).A new study focusing on teenagers’ attitudes and behaviors toward the opposite sex as part of larger research into Turkey and Turkish cultural phenomena has revealed that young Turks’ love lives are hampered by an inability to meet the opposite sex.
The BBDO 2012 survey was based on interviews with two groups of Turkish teens aged between 15 and 17 years old that were drawn from both sexes and different social circles.
The study revealed that separation based on gender is inherent in Turkish society and that this early male-female separation increased the inability for relationships to form over time.
The phenomenon also revealed that female teens spent the majority of their time with older female family members while male teens spent time with male peers. This physical dissociation also caused separate language patterns to form, giving way to future communication difficulties.
Unable to communicate fully via media sites such as Facebook or the Blackberry Messenger system, the study found that eating at the shopping mall was the only activity where teens could mingle. The study concluded that advertisers aiming to attract teens to their brand can gain a lot from creating unisex activities to help them meet one another. In Turkey, however, there has been no gender cleansing of the curriculum, textbooks or teacher-training materials. Textbooks still contain elements that attribute an active role to men and a passive role to women -- so, while men are encouraged to take part in the public sphere, women are being limited by their husbands and children and responsibility for domestic work1.
It is possible to conclude that schools in Turkey actually contribute significantly to the reproduction of traditional gender roles. Teaching of stereotypical gender roles also occurs within the scope of literacy courses for grown-ups2. Course materials often perpetuate and reinforce the traditional roles that prevail amongst learners.
Despite urgent need, policies and mechanisms on “the inspection of education materials with a gender sensitive approach … training of persons to conduct this inspection” and the “production of new texts following the removal of sexist elements” are yet to be formulated.
Another important factor in education processes regarding girls’ education is the gender ratio of staff in schools. Only 3% of school principals in primary schools are women. Women constitute 44% of primary school teachers and 39% of secondary school teachers. In universities, the gender gap is still greater. The prevalence of males in the upper echelons of education, teaching more ‘important’ subjects such as mathematics and physics enforces the message that higher levels of knowledge are the ‘domain of men’ while female teachers, more frequent in lower grades, are occupied in teaching subjects such as reading or writing. Read the full story here, more here from Unicef Turkey.