Relationship between space consciousness and citizenship consciousness of high school geography teachers

The space consciousness can be defined as the whole of the perceptions that occur in the mind of the individual towards the space. Citizenship consciousness can be defined as the ability to participate in governance, to defend society as a part of it, to take care to develop it more, after joining a society or country. It is thought that spreading geographical thinking in the society will strengthen the feelings of national unity and solidarity. This research was conducted to determine the space consciousness and citizenship consciousness levels of high school geography teachers, the relationship between these two levels of consciousness, as well as whether there is a statistically significant difference between those and some socio-demographic variables. Increasing the theoretical level of the discipline of Geography, which is a space science, can also be enhanced by citizenship-conscious studies. In this respect, the studies that examine space consciousness and citizenship consciousness is of great importance. The sample of the research is composed of 69 high school geography teachers who are working in the schools within the boundaries of Besiktas District in Istanbul Province. In the research, Socio-demographic Information Form, Questionnaire for Space Consciousness and Citizenship Consciousness Scale were used as data collection tools. The data collection tools were distributed to the participants in the sampling group both as an A4 form through the school administrators and as an online form that can be filled out in the internet environment between the dates of March-April 2018. Forms were collected in these two ways and were enterred into the excel file. The forms with missing data were eliminated, then SPSS 15.0 program was used in the analysis of the questionnaires with complete data. The demographic characteristics of the teachers participating in the survey are shown by frequency and percentage distributions. Two independent t-tests were used to compare the scores of space consciousness and citizenship consciousness according to gender, marital status, and school type; one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare age, place of birth, and the total time spent in the teaching profession. The LSD post hoc test was used to determine which groups differed when significant differences were seen in the ANOVA test. Pearson correlation analysis was used in the analysis of the relationship between space consciousness and citizenship consciousness of geography teachers. The level of significance in the analyzes was determined as 0.05 (p<0.05). According to the findings obtained in the research; the general space consciousness levels of high school geography teachers are 'high' and their general citizenship consciousness levels are 'very high'. A positive and meaningful relationship was found between space consciousness and citizenship consciousness of high school geography teachers; i.e. high school geography teachers with high space consciousness have high citizenship consciousness, or high school geography teachers with low space consciousness also have low citizenship consciousness. Keywords : High School Geography Teachers, Space Consciousness, Citizenship