Conscience with its religious, philosophical, psychological and sociological aspects and its role in values education

The concept of conscience, which is as ancient as the history of humanity, has been the key concept for many disciplines. In the literature, the concept is considered as an intrinsic power that helps to distinguish between good and evil, the subjective and improvable moral awareness and a control center. Once the influence of the conscience on one's individualistic and social acts is taken into account, the relationship between the conscience and education cannot be ignored. In the contemporary world where the individualistic and social moral disengagements are intensely observed, the importance of morality, character and values education is expressed each day with an ever-growing demand. In this study, it is argued that the most important step of the values education activities is appealing to the conscience of the individuals. The study is a theoretical one, it is based on the literature and conducted by using document analysis of method—which is one of the qualitative research methods. The study has benefited from the Turkish sources on the conscience and values education, like books, articles, theses, periodicals and websites. During the research, the works that are referred in relation with the subject are reviewed and the information related with the subject are collected by using the document analysis method. In this regard, in order for the concept of conscience to be better understood, the second chapter provides a conceptual framework with the lexical meanings of the concept of conscience and the definitions of conscience that are provided by thinkers. The third chapter examines the religious, philosophical, psychological and sociological aspects of the concept of conscience. And the fourth chapter elaborates on the importance and influence of conscience in the values education. Keywords: Conscience, Morality, Value, Values Education