Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
4th International Conference on Education and Social Sciences (INTCESS), İstanbul, Türkiye, 6 - 08 Şubat 2017, ss.293-304
Play that related to all developmental areas and stages of human life takes and important place in children's life and is an occupation that children play every time and everywhere. Street is a place that children can reach easily. However it is neglected that streets should be arranged properly to children's use. Streets are not taken place in children's life. For some reasons such as traffic and safety, parents are concerned about their children playing on the street. Thus concept of "play street" has gained importance in order that children can play in naturel environment and the street that is near their home. When the play streets that offer to children natural playing environment are arranged properly, both all developmental areas of children are supported and the worries of parents about their children playing on the street are decreased. Accordingly, the aim of the research is to examine the play street in Ankara and Istanbul in terms of environment, materials, content, accessibility and cleanliness. The research design is "holistic multiple-case design" which is one of the case study designs; as for the sample of research is 10 play streets which was selected by purposive sampling method in Ankara and Istanbul. As a data collection tool was used to "Play Street Checklist" that is created by researchers. The data are analyzed with content analysis according to predetermined themes in the checklist. Results indicated that the play streets in Istanbul and Ankara are different from each other with regard to approach. The play streets in Ankara are mostly towards preschool children and predominantly are had materials while others in Istanbul are rich in terms of playground (spielplatzs, bowling and chess area etc.) towards all aged. Besides, the materials in the play streets in Ankara are not checked and repaired regularly. The play materials related the playgrounds (chess man etc.) do not exist always in the play streets in Istanbul. Unlike Istanbul, there is no a special activity to increase the use of the play streets in Ankara and these play streets are left to children's own choice only. When the play streets are examined in terms of the most important factor of security theme, results indicated that 7 of the 8 play streets in Ankara are open to traffic but there are warning signs for security. However the play streets in Istanbul are closed to traffic and equippped with security cameras. As a result, the fact that attempts to concept of play street in Ankara and Istanbul which are Turkey's biggest cities has been regarded as an important improvement for Turkey. However increasing the qualities and the number of the play streets throughout Turkey will provide that children will gain maximum benefit from these play streets.