This study aimed at revealing the role of the family functioning, coping styles, and basic personality characteristics on depression and anxiety symptoms of mothers. The participants were 155 mothers, having at least one child and living in Ankara. Beck Depression Inventory, Mc Master Family Assessment Device, Trait Anxiety Inventory, Basic Personality Traits Inventory, and The Ways of Coping Inventory were administered in addition to the demographic form. Firstly, it was expected that, there would be significant differences in depression and anxiety levels of the participants&rsquo / who have different income and education levels, different number of children, and different ages. Secondly, it was expected that, there would be significant differences in family functions, coping strategies, and personality traits of participants&rsquo / who have different income and education levels, different number of children, and different ages. Lastly, Associates of depression and anxiety were examined via regression analyses. According to the result of regression analyses, regarding the depression, low income level, high level of neuroticism, and low level of negative valence traits, problems of general functioning of family and using less problem focused coping strategy were found to be associated with the depression level of mothers. With regard to the anxiety symptoms, low income level, low level of extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience, problems of general functioning of family, and using less problem focused and emotion focused coping strategies were found to be associated with anxiety levels of mothers. These findings were discussed with reference to the relevant literature. Future research topics were suggested and clinical implications of the study were stated.

The aim of this dissertation is to trace the function of parody in the context of Salman Rushdie&rsquo / s magical realistic fiction. The magical realism of Rushdie&rsquo / s fiction presents a complex Third World experience which constitutes an alternative to, and challenges the Eurocentrism of western culture. The form and content of Rushdie&rsquo / s novels are so intense and rich that the whole body of his work comes to the fore, not as an outcome of the two clashing civilisations, that is East and West, but rather as an immense medley of the two cultures. While &ldquo / writing back to the empire&rdquo / , Rushdie draws on innumerable sources ranging from such grand narratives as Genesis, Iliad, Ramayana, A Thousand and One Nights, Hindu, Persian, Greek, and Norse mythologies, and local cultural traditions, to modern politics mingling fiction and reality in a broad historical perspective, so that his work becomes a synthesis of East and West, an international aesthetic plane where diversities express themselves freely. The dissertation focuses particularly on Rushdie&rsquo / s Midnight&rsquo / s Children, The Moor&rsquo / s Last Sigh,and Shalimar The Clown. / it contains an introductory chapter, a theory chapter, including two subchapters, a development chapter with three subchapters which analyse the above mentioned three novels, and a conclusion chapter. The introductory chapter presents an overview of the issues to be investigated in the subsequent chapters. The theory chapter deals with the concepts of colonialism, nationalism, and the past and the present of postcolonial literary theory with reference to its leading theorists, such as M. Foucault, E. Said, H. Bhabha, and other recent critics / this chapter also introduces magical realism by reference to a number of current definitions and approaches. The following three subchapters, which focus on the analyses of the three novels, explore how parody functions both thematically and structurally in relation to Rushdie&rsquo / s magical realism. The concluding chapter demonstrates that Rushdie&rsquo / s work creates an unrestrained plane of an international culture where multiple visions and diversities can find a room to assert themselves.

Ethnic interest groups have historically played a role in the making of American foreign policy but their influence has increased especially following the end of the Cold War. This influence has important repercussions on American foreign policy towards the home countries of the powerful ethnic groups and the regions that these countries are located in. Within this context, this thesis examines the sources or the reasons of the influence of ethnic interest groups on American foreign policy, which has also affected Turkish-American relations significantly. It first focuses on the structural factors that make ethnic influence possible such as the characteristics of the American political system and the important role that Congress plays in the formulation of foreign policy. It then discusses the organizational factors such as organizational strength and using of successful persuasion and dissuasion methods that make it possible to influence American foreign policy. It ends with a normative discussion on the desirability of ethnic influence on American foreign policy.

This thesis mainly aims to understand the dynamics behind the way in which people who lost family members in the conflict in the Southeastern and Eastern parts of Turkey between the years 1993 and 2006 are positioned as oppositional to each others. It inquires whether their common grief of loosing someone in the family might enable them to act collectively and to ask for peace in Turkey. How are they represented as oppositional groups despite their common grief? Why do they consider each other as belonging to the &ldquo / other side&rdquo / ? How does this kind of representation prevent them from coming together and asking for a peaceful termination of conflict in Turkey? In discussing these questions, the concepts of peace, violence, security, inequalities, terrorism, religion, martyrdom, ideology, and hegemony are drawn upon. Galtung&rsquo / s approach to peace is taken as the general framework. Moreover, martyrdom is considered as key concept that interlinks the other concepts as interviewees conceptualize them.

This thesis is made of two main parts. First main part of the thesis is based on the qualitative enquiry of twenty-three Aikido participants from different levels - beginner, intermediate, advanced- from three different dojos. Open ended questions regarding the difference of Aikido from other sports is asked to the participants. Their written responses were coded using qualitative methods. Based on coding of documents: labels, categories and themes have been generated. Second main part of this thesis is based on the discussion of those findings. The discussion between different levels, the comparison with other findings in Aikido Literature was done. Lastly and largely the position of findings and possible arguments it can generate in the Philosophy of Sports Literature are discussed.

This study deals with the notions and practices of surveillance and control in the current society. By this means, it aims to discuss the relation between technology and power on basis of surveillance technologies witnessed in all domains of life. With the extensive use of new technologies as camera monitoring, biometrics, and smart cards, power holders get the opportunity and tools to monitor all actions and data of individuals. How this is achieved and for what purposes and the ideology behind the surveillance practices are the main issues of this study. In accordance with this goal, the use of surveillance technologies as a tool of power to provide rationalization in which everything is visible, predictable, and controllable, to maintain social control, and to ensure the domination of power over the society is discussed through examining the applications of surveillance in Turkey and in other countries. Besides, the becoming of surveillance and control as natural and usual aspects of the current society in the eyes of people and their becoming a culture are also pointed out and analyzed in order to comprehend the location of these notions in everyday life. All these issues are discussed critically in order to analyze the role and ideological function of surveillance, in particular, and the relation of technology with power, in general.

The thesis analyzes the role of politicized music of Kurdish music groups (koms) that emerged in the 1990s in the construction of Kurdish identity. The relation between politics and music is analyzed in the framework of the relation between nationalism and music and political movements&#039 / relation to music. Through koms&#039 / politicized music, the movement communicated its cause, told the struggle of the movement and aimed to mobilize the masses. In addition to this, music has functioned as a field where the collective identity of the movement as well as the Kurdish identity is constructed. As the Kurdish movement did not possess the institutional and ideological apparatuses of the national state in its national identity construction process, music started to play an important role. Through modernization of Kurdish folk music, the identity is constructed as a modern and authentic one. In addition, with the political lyrics of the songs, the national elements such as common language, common history and the imagined territory are constructed, popularized, and canonized. Despite their counter-hegemonic position, koms have articulated elements of the hegemonic discourses as well.

This study aims to investigate the effects of event type (concepts represented by the graph) in graph comprehension with three graph types (line, bar, area) and two graph designs (linear, round) by means of two different task types (trend assessment, discrete comparison). A novel round graph type was designed for that purpose. Five hypotheses were investigated: H1: Graph type affects comparison strategies / H2: Event type affects comparison strategies / H3: Graph design affects comparison strategies / H4: Graph design and event type interact / H5: Task type affects comparison strategies. As a method to collect data on subjects&#039 / graph perception and comprehension, behavioral (recollected values, word preferences in the description task) and eye-tracking data (scan paths, gaze length, number of fixation, fixation duration and number of transitions) were collected. As an outcome of this thesis, while the event type and the task type seemed to affect the graph comprehension, the effect of graph type, the graph design and interaction between graph design and event type were partially observed. These results point out that although round and linear graph designs are informationally equivalent, the round graphs are computationally better suited than linear graphs for the interpretation of cyclic concepts. However, grasping trend information for the linear events and making discrete comparisons were achieved with the same effort in both graph designs. This result is not trivial at all, given the fact that participants were not familiar with the round graph design and were confronted with them in this experiment for the first time.

A STUDY OF PUBLIC IMAGERY OF POLICE WORK FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF GENDER: THE CASE OF ANKARA Demir, Murat Cem Ph.D., Department of Sociology Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Kayhan Mutlu February 2010, 245 pages Police &ndash / public relations and image of the police are fields of study that are dealt with more and more recently in the disciplines of criminology and sociology. These subjects are also partially the matter of this study. The purpose of our study is to find out how the image of the police is influenced by the gender / that is what kind of a role the gender plays in the police &ndash / society relations. In brief, this study seeks answers for the questions such as whether the level of relationship that the people establishes with the female police officers and male officers is the same / whether the perception of the public changes towards female and male police officers / and the role of the gender in the formation of such relation, in other words, whether men and women have a different perception of the police officers in general terms and whether they perceive the female and male police officers in different way in specific terms by means of surveys and questionnaires. When the data from the questionnaire conducted with 313 respondents in the sample of Ankara and the information obtained from the interview data carried out with 16 people in this study are interpreted, it has been found out that the police and public relationship is never static and routine and uniform / on the contrary this relationship is rather dynamic and heterogeneous. In short, the police &ndash / public relation is fit on a complex equation rather than a simple one. One of the most notable reasons of this complexity lies at the identities of the actors / that means the heterogeneity of the identities. Gender is a significant variable determining (elaborating) the relation of the police &ndash / public and constitutes an important part of the identity. In this study, the gender has the role and task of both independent variable, and dependent variable representing the perception of female and male police officer since when we have a look with the gender axis, we happen to see the cross equation in the police &ndash / public relation: male police officer &ndash / female police officer, male citizens &ndash / female citizens. A considerable contribution of this study is its investigation of the above mentioned cross relation along with the public dimension. Keywords: Gender, Police Image, Female Police Officer, Male Police Officer

Religion was regarded as a marginal factor by scholars of International Relations for a long time. The main reason for this ignorance is that the discipline of International Relations has followed the major paradigm - secularization thesis - in social sciences until recently. This resulted in ignorance of religion as an explanatory factor in International Relations. However, this situation has recently started to change. Beginning from 1990s, the role of religion in international relations has started to be reexamined / and secularization theory has started to be criticized. On the other hand, religion has started to be regarded as a tool for peacebuilding, at the same time. In addition to its contribution to conflicts and wars, religion is increasingly seen as a potential tool for peaceful cooperation / and inter-religious dialogue is becoming a part of diplomacy and conflict resolution policies. Within this context, interfaith dialogue is a case which shows the extent of the change in the discipline of IR regarding the role of religion. This thesis aims to make a comprehensive discussion on the historical and contemporary relation between religion and international relations by focusing on the role of interfaith dialogue, specifically dialogue initiatives within the EU and the UN. The dialogue projects of these institutions and their relation with security-driven policies are examined. Thus, the main concern of this study is to raise a question about the role of interfaith dialogue, especially the one proposed by the institutions above, in transforming the role of religion in international relations.