Examination of primary school textbooks in terms of environmental ethics approaches

This research has been prepared to determine the status of environmental ethics approaches in primary school textbooks. In the research, document analysis technique, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. Textbooks distributed free of charge in primary schools by the Ministry of National Education in the 2022-2023 academic year were used as data sources. In order to be used in the analysis of the data, the environmental ethics approaches in the fourth section were classified and turned into a table. Phrases, sentences and images reflecting the environmental ethics approaches in the textbooks were selected, and tables were created based on the course and grade levels, and finally, the frequency and percentage values of all textbooks were collected in a table. According to the results of the research, while no data is found in the 1st and 4th grade Music textbooks, the data found in the 2nd and 3rd grade Music textbooks are 100% non-human-centered approaches. The Human Rights, Democracy and Citizenship textbook includes 100% human-centered approaches. While human-centered approaches are more common in Life Studies (57%), Social Studies (77%) and Mathematics (85%) textbooks, Turkish (67.2%), Traffic Safety (53%) and Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge (%) 67) in the textbooks, approaches that do not center human constitute the majority. In general, primary school textbooks contain more human-centered approaches, but when we look at the 3rd grade textbooks in general, they contain relatively more non-human-centered approaches. In the light of these results, nature-centered approaches should be included more in textbooks in order to raise individuals with environmental awareness.