Effect of art education program given to gypsy children on children's creativity

In the study, the effect of art education program given to gypsy children on children's creativity was examined. The study group of the study consisted of 51 gypsy children in the 5 to 6 years age group who show normal development and who attend private, official, independent kindergartens and kindergartens in primary schools under the Ministry of National Education in the Doğanlar district of Karatay county of Konya province. Art education program was applied to gypsy children for twelve weeks. When the creative skills scale pretest-posttest mean scores were examined, a significant difference was obtained in each of the drawing and categories sub-dimensions and home and school evaluation scales. There was no significant relationship between the creativity levels of the gypsy children and their post-test scores. A significant difference was found between the ages of the children and the creativity post-test scores. In line with this result, it was observed that the art education program applied to gypsy children has a positive effect on children's creativity.


INTRODUCTION
Creativity is a feature that leads to its most prominent innovations in human history (Johnson, 2000). Yuvacı and Dağlıoğlu (2016) explained creativity as the ability to look at the situations that a person encounters throughout her/his life from different perspectives. According to Zembat et al. (2018), creativity is expressed as designing a different product and presenting a new idea or work.
In order for children, that is, the individuals of the future to adapt to the changes occurring today, an education system with a creative and innovative understanding must be established (Gözün Kahraman and Demirbaş, 2018). In order to bring different solutions to different events which individuals will encounter in their lives, creative thinking skills should be provided to children from a very early age. Acquisition of creative thinking skills for children at an early age can be realized by *Corresponding author. E-mail: cycicekler@erbakan.edu.tr. 1 2 ".
Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License creative preschool teachers, which will be prepared and implemented in accordance with the development levels of children. According to Koyuncu Şahin and Akman (2018), it is stated that children's creative thinking will continue actively as long as children are provided with a free environment and no attitudes preventing them from thinking creatively by adults. Creative thinking process should be included in this education system. Thus, it will be made sure that the creative attitude in children (Płóciennik, 2018) which includes the skills of curiosity, exploring, critical thinking, comparing situations and being able to make decisions as a result, is improved. In order for individuals to find effective solutions for the problems they will encounter throughout their lives, they must have creative thoughts and produce creative ideas (Savcı, 2018). Scibinetti et al. (2011) stated that there is a close relationship between creativity and thinking. Creativity is a process that takes place over time (Johnson, 2000) and especially children's imaginations are very rich in preschool period (Çelebi Öncü, 2018). It is a known fact that the language, cognitive, motor and social-emotional development areas of preschool children develop quite rapidly compared to other times. Supporting all the development of children in this period is important in revealing the talents of children (Ceylan and Cevher Kalburan, 2018). The feeling of curiosity, which forms the basis of creativity, is a situation observed in all children and observed when children start to explore their environment (Çakmak and Akıncı Demirbaş, 2018). The fact that children think that they can succeed in this process during a confronted situation and have the potential competence to overcome this situation will enable them to successfully complete this situation with a high motivation (Haase et al., 2018). According to Lee and Kemple (2014), providing children's flexible thinking in developing their creativity, supporting them with cooperative teaching, ensuring that children can evaluate themselves, that is, creating awareness in selfassessment, supporting their independent thinking, and providing their experiences with different stimuli in different learning environments and these experiences of children will enable them to act boldly and eagerly.
Children who come into the world have to act dependent on their parents as a result of not being able to determine the environment in which they will live their lives (Arslan Karaküçük, 2008). In our country, gypsy children are exposed to differentiation in the education process compared to other children. As gypsies usually live on the outskirts of cities, gypsy children continue their education in their neighborhoods. This situation restricts gypsy children's receiving education together with other children and causes them to be excluded (Genç et al., 2015). It was determined that there are patterns in children's perceptions of space in the learning environment (Jankowska et al., 2019).
As in other developmental areas of children, many factors affect the development of their creativity as well.
Among these factors, the environment which the child stays in is very important. The development of children in early childhood will be positively affected by equipping their environment with appropriate stimulating materials. In contrast, the development of children raised in adverse environmental conditions will also be negatively affected. Through this study, in order for gypsy children living in Konya province to improve their creativity levels, a twelve-week creativity training was given by providing training environments with rich stimulants, and it was aimed to increase the creativity levels of the children.

Participants
The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of arts education program given to gypsy children on children's creativity levels. In the study, a single group pretest-posttest model from pre-trial models was used in order to reveal the effects of the education program for gypsy children on the creativity of children. In the single group pretest-posttest model, by applying an independent variable to a randomly selected group, measurements have been made both before and after the experiment (Karasar, 2020). "Profile of Creative Abilities-PCA" was applied as a pretest to be able to determine the effect of "Preschool Art Education Program" given to gypsy children on the levels of creativity of the children within the scope of the research. After the pretest applications, "Preschool Art Education Program" was applied to gypsy children within the scope of the research. At the end of the training, the same scale was applied to the group as a post-test. While the independent variables of the research are the creativity levels of the children, the dependent variables are the "Preschool Art Education Program" for gypsy children. The study group of the research consisted of 51 gypsy children in the 5-6 age group who were selected based on the simple random sampling method, who show normal development, and who attend private, official, independent kindergartens and kindergartens in primary schools under the Ministry of National Education in the Doğanlar district of Karatay county of Konya province (Büyüköztürk et al., 2011;Balcı, 2007). Simple random sampling method is a method that allows the individuals who will be selected for the sample group to be determined according to the chance element (Böke, 2017). 19 (37.25%) of the children in the study group are girls and 32 (62.75%) are boys. 31 (60.8%) of gypsy children are in the age of five, and 20 (39.2%) are in the age group of six.

Instruments and data collection
In the research, the general information form was developed by the researchers to obtain demographic information about children and their families, and the PCA was developed by Ryser (2007) in order to evaluate the creativity levels of children.

General information form
The general information form was created by the researchers in order to determine the demographic information of the children included in the research. In the general information form, questions about the date of birth, gender, and the order of birth of the children taking part in the study are included.

Profile of creative abilities-PCA
The PCA, which was developed by Ryser (2007) and whose validity and reliability study was conducted by Yıldız Çiçekler and Aral (2016), was used in the research in order to evaluate the creativity levels of children. The scale consists of drawing, categories, home rating scale and school rating sub-dimensions. The drawing subscale consists of eight different shapes that are left unfinished. In the drawing subscale, children are asked to complete eight different shapes, which are left unfinished, using their imagination. Although there is no time limitation on the drawing subscale, children are encouraged to complete this subscale within thirty minutes. The drawing subscale is scored according to four creative ability sub-dimensions. The four sub-dimensions in the drawing subscale are scored as 0, 1 and 2. The categories subscale consists of two matrices. Including 4 transverse and 5 longitudinal, there are 20 animal pictures and 20 geometric figures in these matrices. The children are asked to form groups of at least three pictures and figures, and the person performing the test is asked to explain how they formed these groups. The child is given three minutes to produce as many categories as possible for each form. The person who applies the scale records the child's answers. The home assessment scale is a likert-type scale consisting of thirty-five questions that can be answered by the child's parents or an adult who cares for the child. The school evaluation scale is also a likerttype scale with thirty-five questions answered by the child's teacher. Within the scope of the validity study of the scale, as part of reliability, methods of test-retest reliability, inter-rater consistency, and the calculation of the Cronbach Alpha coefficient were used for the validity of scope, structure and criterion. It was found that the internal consistency of the drawing subscale of the PCA is 0.80, the internal consistency of the categories subscale is 0.90, the reliability of the home rating subscale within the scope of internal consistency is 0.97, the reliability of the school rating subscale in terms of internal consistency is 0.97, and the overall Cronbach Alpha value of the scale is 0.95.

Data collection and analysis
In the study, "Preschool Art Education Program" was given to the children in Akif Paşa Primary School in Doğanlar district for twelve weeks. Arts education was given to 51 gypsy pre-schoolers who are at the age of 5-6. The given education includes artistic activities such as dough activities, paper activities, residual material studies and paint activities are told and performed, which are also known as dye and desk activities to support their language, cognitive, social, affective and psycho-motor development. In the study, firstly, necessary permissions were obtained from Konya Directorate of National Education and correspondences were made regarding cooperation. Prior to the study, parents on whose children the training program was planned to be implemented were given information about the training and the content of the scale to be implemented, and their informed consent was obtained. Special care was given to ensure voluntary participation. Before and after the training activities, the "PCA" was applied to the children and the data collected were analyzed in the computer environment. The data obtained were evaluated with the "T-test for related samples" and "Mann Whitney U-Test" (Büyüköztürk, 2012) used in experimental studies where frequency, percentage and two related measurements or scores were obtained.

RESULTS
Findings regarding the effectiveness of educational programs for gypsy children are handled. When the Yildiz Çiçekler and Aral 525 Profile of Creative Abilities-PCA pretest-posttest mean scores were examined, a significant difference was obtained in each of the drawing and categories subdimensions and home and school rating scales (Table 1).
In line with this result, it shows that the art education program applied to gypsy children has a positive effect on children's creativity.
When the results of the education given according to the gender of gypsy children are analyzed, it is seen that there is a significant difference in favor of girls only in the total score of drawing sub-dimension (Table 2).
It is seen that there is a significant difference between the creativity levels of gypsy children and their age in favor of children in the age group of six (Table 3).

DISCUSSION
In the study, the effects of the educational program intended for gypsy children on the creativity levels of children were examined. At the end of the study, as a result of the pretest-posttest mean scores of the PCA applied to gypsy children, a significant difference was obtained in each of the drawing and categories subdimensions and home and school rating scales. With this result, it was determined that the art education program applied to gypsy children has a positive effect on children's creativity. It is very important for children to observe the environment and examine the existing objects in order to create different ideas or products in art activities. For this reason, gypsy children were trained with art education in the study. In the study, children were trained with art education and gypsy children, who is a disadvantaged group, was provided with the opportunity to meet materials that children have not experienced before. The children were introduced to these materials and directed to design different products from the materials. Thus, children were provided to reveal their creativity, which is actually present. Children who are in a disadvantaged group and do not live in an environment that is sufficiently stimulating cannot demonstrate and develop their creativity due to adverse conditions. With this result obtained from the study, it can be seen that effective results may occur in children when sufficient environment and opportunities are provided for disadvantaged children.
In many societies, it is known that children as well as adults do not use their creative abilities (Runco, 2010). When the studies on this subject are analyzed, creativity education program was applied to the children and it was determined that the creativity trainings applied had a strong and positive effect on the children in the study conducted by Aral et al. (2006), Can Yaşar (2009), Can- Aral (2011), Garaigordobil andBerrueco (2011), Dere and Ömeroğlu (2018), Yüksel (2018), and Zahra et al. (2013).
In order to support the development of children in many areas such as creativity, it is necessary to attend the  (2015), it is emphasized that education is an important opportunity in shaping the lives of individuals, but individuals should be eager for education in order to be beneficial for this opportunity.
Due to the social exclusions experienced by gypsy children, approaching to gypsy as individuals prone to crime in society causes them to be exposed to derogatory discourses and to experience discrimination in the school environment. As a result of this situation, the biggest problem experienced during the education process of gypsy children is that school absenteeism is very common. Due to economic factors, family structures and social exclusion experienced in the society, there are difficulties in educational conditions of gypsy children (Daşdemir et al., 2015). Based on this information, it has been observed that there will be advances in children's creativity levels when education is provided by providing environments with sufficient stimulating materials for gypsy children. It is thought that this positive process can be maintained by providing these children to receive education in schools with a better educational environment instead of training gypsy children in suburbs. When the education given according to the gender of gypsy children are analyzed, it was seen that there was a significant difference in favor of girls only in the total score of drawing sub-dimension. In the study, different activities were carried out to gypsy children during twelve weeks, which they had not experienced before. The fact that there is no difference in the other sub-dimensions apart from drawing sub-dimension between girls and boys can be explained by applying the same activities within the same periods and never exposing children to these activities before. Participation of children with interest in educational programs applied to children is an important factor in the effectiveness of the education provided. The gender of children has not been an important variable in their interest in participating in the activities implemented in educational programs and in the creativity of children. The significant difference in the subdimension of drawing pictures between girls and boys can be explained by the fact that girls tend to draw more than boys and that they perform this activity with interest.
There are many studies with similar results with the results obtained in the study. While significant differences were found between the creativity levels of children and gender in favor of girls in the studies carried out by Çağatay Aral (1990), Eratay (1993), Aral (1996), Gralewski (2019), and Hemdan and Kazim (2019), the effect of gender on creativity was examined and as a result of the researches, there was no significant difference between the genders in the studies carried out by (Sonmaz, 2002;Lee, 2005). According to another result obtained from the study, when the creativity levels and age of gypsy children were examined, a significant difference was obtained in favor of the children in the age group of six. In the studies carried out by Jastrzębska and Limont (2017), Gralewski et al. (2016), Karadayı (2018), Mottweiler and Taylor (2014), Yeh and Li (2008), and Yıldız Çiçekler (2016), it was observed that there was a relationship between children's creativity levels and their ages and creativity increased with age. Creativity is not at the same level among individuals (Karwowski and Jankowska, 2016). Therefore, it is important for parents and educators to know the creative thinking characteristics according to the age levels and individual differences of the children, since the development of creativity is quite different from the other development areas of the person (Aral and Yıldız Çiçekler, 2018). It is necessary that children are provided with sufficient stimulating environments until the age of thirteen (Gönen et al., 2006) known as the age at which creativity reaches the highest level and that children are guided as a conscious teacher and parent. The reason for the improvement in creativity levels as the ages of the children increase is explained by the fact that the children benefit from adequate and rich stimulating environmental settings. However, gypsy children are deprived of these adequate and rich stimulating environmental settings. According to the results of the study, if the gypsy children are given sufficient material and supportive education opportunities, it is thought that positive results can be obtained in the creativity levels of these children.

Conclusion
In the study, the effects of the educational program intended for gypsy children on the creativity levels of children were examined. At the end of the study, as a result of the pretest-posttest mean scores of the PCA applied to gypsy children, a significant difference was obtained in each of the drawing and categories subdimensions and home and school rating scales. When the education given according to the gender of gypsy children are analyzed, it was seen that there was a significant difference in favor of girls only in the total score of drawing sub-dimension. According to another result obtained from the study, when the creativity levels and age of gypsy children were examined, a significant difference was obtained in favor of the children in the age group of six.

RECOMMENDATIONS
As a result of this information, it would be useful to give different training to gypsy children in their creative fields in order to ensure, through art activities, that preschool children develop positive attitudes towards school and studying and to make their school attendance permanent. Contributions will be made to the mental, physical and social developments and creativity of children by making sure that the communication, self-expression and imaginative thoughts of children are developed by means of art education. Thus, through art activities performed with children, the increase in the enrolment rates of the number of children attending pre-school education and sustainability of the attendance of children to school will be ensured by emphasizing that the school environment is both an educational and entertaining place.