The current events in social studies education: Evaluation of the ways primary school fourth and fifth grade teachers approach the current events in social studies education

The aim of this study is to evaluate of the ways primary school fourth and fifth grade teachers cover the current events in Social Studies lessons in 2007-2008 academic year.The research is a descriptive survey study. The population of the study is composed of primary school fourth and fifth teachers working in central districts (Seyhan, Yüreğir, Çukurova and Sarıçam) of the city of Adana. The guantitative and the gualitative data collections tools are used together in this research. Hence, the sampling was performed in two phases. The sampling for the quantitative data was determined by via random stratified sampling. Each formal primary school within the sampling framework was assigned a number starting from one. 35 primary schools in total were accepted as the population. In this way, the quantitative research sample was made up by 222 class masters working in 35 primary schools, who teach fourth and fifth grades. The sampling of qualitative research was selected with the technique of criteria sampling, which is one of the purposeful sampling techniques. This sample was made up by 10 class masters, who teach fourth and fifth grades. In this case, the fact that for qualitative research, easy accessibility of the teachers, they use current events all the time or most of the time in social studies education and they participate in research voluntarily was chosen as criteria.In the study, the quantitative data was collected by using the survey ?Survey of The Ways Current Events Are Covered in Social Studies Education ? that was developed by the researcher and the qualitative data was collected by using ?Teacher Interview Form?.The data of the survey which was given to teachers was analyzed by using the techniques of descriptive statistics namely frequencies and percentages and Chi-square techniques. In the analysis, the level of significance was taken as p ? .05. The qualitative data which was obtained from the interviews was analyzed using techniques of content analysis.Almost all the teachers who participated in the research make use of current events in social studies lessons. It was revealed that teachers mostly allocate nearly 10-15 minutes for current events in social studies lessons, depening on the topic. Furthermore, nearly all the teachers who participated in the research think that current events help students make connection between social life and what they learn in social studiess lessons and make the content of social studiess lessons concrete. According to research findings, 82 percent of the teachers adopt the approach of teaching current events in addition to social studiess. As subgoals of the research, it was examined whether or not the approaches teachers adopt in covering current events vary depening on the demographic features such as gender, class level, class size, socia-economic class, professional seniority and no significant correlation between the approaches teachers adopt and these demographic features was detected.It was revealed that teachers use current events to exemplify the topic they are covering in social studies lessons. Besides, the criteria of the teachers in selection of the events is that the event should not be related to violence. Rather, they use daily social topics. It was also revealed that teachers choose current events from sources such as examples from life, newspapers and television as they are easy and common sources. Findings of the research show that teachers teach the lesson by using methods like question-answer technique, case study method, discussion and it was also found out that news-watching activity is what teachers use the most. Further, it was found out that problems teachers have while covering current events are apathy of families and students, current social studies program and over-sized classrooms.Consequently, it can be said that teachers cover current events in social studies lessons. For better social studies lessons, teachers suggested that families be guided, the load of social studies program and class sizes be reduced. What is more, they suggested that their collaguages bring newspapers into their classrooms, news diaries be kept and bulletin boards be formed.