A research on the historical development of altruism concept and teachers' altruism

Altruism has been a subject of the study for moral philosophers and continues dividing the moral philosophers. Altruism was first introduced by Auguste Comte in 19th century and later developed by Pitirim A. Sorokin in 20th century. The idea of self-referential altruism is that self-love and the felt connection between self and others foster geniune other-concern that may result in altruistic acts for other?s sake.This research aimed to investigate the alturism levels of the teachers in public schools. The differences between altruism levels and the research questions of the study on variables in the context of the teachers? gender, age, maritual status, number of children they have, seniority, the schools they graduated, the number of the students in their schools, reasons why they choose that job are investigated in this study.The population of this study which is designed as a survey method is 5262 and the sample group of this study includes 318 classroom and branch teachers working at public schools in Maltepe and in Kartal Districts of Istanbul City between the academical year 2007 ? 2008. Personal information form and Teacher Altruism Inventory are used to get the data of this study. At the end of the research, for evaluation of the data frequency delivery, Independent ?t? test, One way ANOVA and Pearson Correlation Coefficent test analysis methods are used.It is stated that there are no meaningful difference between teachers? gender, maritual status and the schools they graduated and their altruism levels. In this study, there is a meaningful difference between teachers? branches and their altruism level in the size of benevolence in current situations. There is a meaningful situation in the size of donation and social responsibility/sharing when it is evaluated the variable of seniority and altruism level. While there is no meaningful difference between the number of the students in their school and teachers? altruism in the size of donation and benevolence in current situations; in the size of benevolence in emergency and in the size of social responsibility/sharing, there is a meaningful difference. While there is no meaningful difference between the reason why teachers chose this job and their altruism in the size of donation and benevolence in current situations; there is a meaningful difference in the size of benevolence in emergency. While there is a meaningful difference between the reason why teachers chose this job and altruism in the size of social responsibility/sharing after one way ANOVA test; there is no meaninful difference, after Tukey test. There is a negative connection between the number of the children the teachers have who respond Teacher Altruism Inventory and their altruism in the size of donation in a low level and there is a positive connection between the number of the children the teachers have who respond Teacher Altruism Inventory and their altruism in the size of benevolence in emergency, social responsibility/sharing and benevolence in current situations in a low level. There is a positive connection between teachers? ages and their altruism in a low level.