Reflections of Kieran Egan's understanding of education on social sciences and history teaching: The case of Turkey

Kieran Egan is an important figure in history education literature. Kieran Egan has worked on the development of historical thinking. Kieran Egan explained historical thinking by dividing it into stages. These stages are somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophical and ironic. Egan also emphasizes the importance of stories, out-of-school learning and oral history studies in history teaching. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the reflections of Kieran Egan's understanding of education on social studies and history teaching in Turkey based on the opinions of field experts. A qualitative approach was adopted in the study and phenomenology design was used to obtain the views of field experts in depth. A semi-structured interview form was created as a data collection tool. The data obtained were analyzed using content analysis. With the evaluations made, it was seen that Kieran Egan rejected the traditional understanding of education and adopted a student-centered education idea. Based on the stages developed by Egan, it was concluded that students can learn history at any age, but for this, teachers should support students by using appropriate methods and techniques. As a result of the study, in parallel with Egan's understanding of education, it was understood that history subjects can be taught at any age by providing children with the necessary conditions for learning and appropriate methods and techniques in accordance with the constructivist understanding in history teaching. The importance of stories and out-of-school environments in children's learning of history is emphasized. At the same time, it is also stated that by applying Egan's approach, students can gain creative thinking, questioning, discussion, reflection and detailed study skills. Finally, it is concluded that Egan's historical thinking processes provide guidance on how to teach history to different age groups by producing a general framework that the same content can be presented in different ways in a classroom. Based on the results of the study, it is recommended that Egan's ideas should be included in curricula and textbooks, materials that can be used for all age levels should be designed in accordance with Egan's stages of historical thinking, teacher training institutions should include Egan's understanding of education in detail and with concrete examples, teachers should use stories while teaching historical subjects and conduct out-of-school teaching.