Investigation of the relationship between the digital literacy levels and the cultural capital competencies of social science teachers

This research was carried out to determine how social studies teachers' digital literacy levels and cultural capital proficiency levels are, and whether there is a relationship between social studies teachers' digital literacy levels and cultural capital competencies. In the study, it was also examined whether there is a difference in the digital literacy levels and cultural capital competencies of Social Studies Teachers according to gender, age, marital status, length of service, duration of internet use and the number of in-service training attended by the teacher. The sample of the study consisted of 217 Social Studies Teachers working in 23 different secondary schools in the Mezitli, Akdeniz, Toroslar and Yenişehir districts of Mersin in 2021-2022 academic year. In this study, "Digital Literacy Scale", "Cultural Capital Scale" and "Personal Information Form" were used as data collection tools. Frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, t-test, analysis of variance and Pearson correlation analyzes were carried out in response to the research questions. According to the results obtained from the research, the social studies teachers participating in the research had high levels of digital literacy; It was determined that the scores they got in the "instructional technologies" dimension of the scale were low, and the scores they got in the "information and communication" and "technical" dimensions were high. It has been determined that the digital literacy levels of Social Studies Teachers differ according to gender, age, marital status, length of service, frequency of in-service training, and the duration of internet use does not create any differentiation. It has been observed that Social Studies Teachers have high scores in terms of cultural capital competency levels and "intellectual accumulation", "participation", "cultural awareness" and "cultural potential" which are the sub-dimensions of the scale. It was determined that the cultural capital competency levels of Social Studies Teachers did not show a significant difference according to gender, age, marital status, length of service, duration of internet use, and frequency of in-service training. A positive and significant relationship was found between social studies teachers' digital literacy levels and cultural capital competency levels. As the cultural capital competency levels of social studies teachers increase, their digital literacy levels also increase.