Teenage girls' life coach : a comparative and critical analysis of İpek Ongun trilogy of good manners and personal growth

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2005

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Akün, Selen

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In this thesis, İpek Ongun̕s three books on good manners and etiquette, which especially aim at teenage girls, are analyzed in detail. Born in 1943, Ongun is a popular Turkish writer in teenage literature who has sold over a million books since 1980s. It is necessary to investigate especially the cultural, social and aesthetic messages given in her books. The writer̕s non-fiction trilogy has been extremely influential on teenage girls in Turkey in the 1990s, and they still are. These are Bir Pırıltıdır Yaşamak (Living Is a Glitter, 1991), Bu Hayat Sizin (This Life Is Yours, 1993), and Lütfen Beni Anla (Please Understand Me, 1995). The themes of major importance in the trilogy are social life, traditions, schools, parenting, beauty, and personal care. This study examines the content of this trilogy from a critical perspective, especially raising questions regarding Ongun̕s messages leading the construction of female identities from a feminist viewpoint. The qualitative research method has been adopted for the analysis and several comparisons have been carried out between Ongun̕s books and certain popular teenage etiquette books published in the US. The study concludes that although some of Ongun̕s messages might be found beneficial for certain segments of the teenage population, the fact that she is not an expert in teenage psychology and development, poses several critical questions about the validity of her messages. Besides, Ongun̕s target audience seems to be the upper-middle classes of the society also raises questions regarding the universality of her messages.

Subject Keywords

Women.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12606860/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/15529

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

S. Akün, “Teenage girls’ life coach : a comparative and critical analysis of İpek Ongun trilogy of good manners and personal growth,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2005.