Determining the democratic attitudes of social studies teachers and analyzing them through variables (Sample of Bingöl province)

The main objective of this study is to reveal general democratic attitudes of social studies teachers and to analyze them through variables as sex, age, professional seniority, marital status, educational levels of parents, whether joining to any in-service training activities or not. It is studied on 88 social studies teachers, 29 of whom are female and 59 of whom are male, in public schools under directorate of Bingöl Provincial Directorate of National Education in 2012-2013 academic year. In the study in which scan model has been used, "Democratic Attitude Scale" which was adopted in Turkish by Gözütok (1995) has been used to reveal democratic attitude together with personal information form which was designed to collect demographical variables by the author. The data which were gotten from social studies teachers have been analyzed by using SPSS 21.00. packaged software. Arithmetic mean for analyzing data, "t-test" for binary groups in which data showed normal distribution and one-way variant analysis (Anova) for groups which included more than two persons were used. Tukey (HSD) test was used to express what differences occurred among any groups. Democratic attitude level of social studies teachers have been handled with variables as sex, age, professional seniority, marital status, education levels of parents and whether joining to in-service training activities or not. As consequences of this study, it has been shown that general democratic attitudes of social studies teachers are in high levels. It is concluded that there is no difference on meaningful level between democratic attitude and others as sex, age, professional seniority, marital status, education levels of parents and whether joining to in-service training activities or not. The high level that democratic attitudes of social studies teachers present can support curriculum of social studies to attain its goal. It also helps to discipline people who interiorize main principles and values of democracy. The in-service training activities had better be revised to increase democratic attitudes of teachers. Methods in which participation and interaction are intense should be used in these activities. The personal views of teachers have been demanded in this study to reveal democratic attitudes of social studies teachers. In the studies, the views of parents, pupils, teachers, directors and staff should be demanded in order to reveal democratic attitudes of teachers.