Evaluation of the relationship between 4 th grade social studies instruction and social and other sciences

This is a descriptive study conducted via a survey to determine to which degree 4th grade elementary school teachers relate the concepts included in the Social Studies course to social sciences and other disciplines during class time and to determine whether a plausible difference exists between the concepts introduced in the class and other social sciences, based on several selected variables. The population for this study was the elementary schools in the Yüreğir and Seyhan districts of Adana. Twenty five elementary schools were randomly chosen from the two districts. The samples consisted of 106 4th grade teachers in these schools. The data for this study were collected using two means, one of which is the survey that aimed to collect information on what teachers thought about interdisciplinary education, and the other is the personal conversations with the selected teachers. To collect the necessary data, the survey was applied to 106 teachers and following the surveys 71 voluntary teachers were asked 7 open-ended questions. To analyze the data, first, frequency distribution, percentages, and chis quare (X2) were used. Then, the quantitative data obtained from the survey were related to the qualitative data obtained from the interview. As a result, it was found that more than 50% of the teachers sampled in this study "generally" interrelated the Social Studies concepts and other social sciences. No significant difference was found between the ability of the teachers to relate the course concepts to social studies and the gender, rank, the university from which the teachers graduated, and workshops that the teachers attended (P>0.05). Additionally, it was determined that the teachers "always" related the Social Studies concepts to Turkish, and "occasionally" to mathematics, physics, music, and painting.IV The fact that the teachers did not answer the questions regarding "interdisciplinary education" satisfactorily or that they hesitated to answer the questions might be an indication for not having been informed about interdisciplinary education properly and that they do not actually use this form of education in the social sciences course.Keywords: Curriculum, Interdisciplinary curriculum. Social studies curriculum, Social Science, Primary school.