Local geography teaching in social studies: Investigation of social studies teachers' views

Local geography is a field of study that does not place too much stress on although it is known by different names in body of literature on our country. One of the reasons for this can be that it is mainly specialized in branches of science (physical, human and economic) gathered under the same roof of general geography in Turkey. Another reason is that there is no general consensus about exactly how much an area "local/regional" concept covers. Local concept is relative. In other words, the concept of local is in contrast to national and global. For example, a geographical region can be local to the national or vice versa. In other saying, any area may be local to another area. However, generally speaking, we can be described the local as a confined area. Human being himself determines the size of this confined area. This determined area may be the garden of our house or continent or a hemisphere. In this context, local geography is a geographic approach that enables any restricted area of the earth to geographically examine in any or every respect. There has been no study yet that investigates local geography in body of literature on our country. Therefore, an approach called local geography teaching cannot be suggested in Turkey. In our country, it is known in terms of its content even though local geography teaching remains unknown by name. Local geography teaching aims to effectively use all the geographical elements in the teaching that can be used in the geography teaching and are found in the immediate vicinity or surrounding area of the school where students received education. In other words, we can also be designated the local geography teaching as an education approach that allows the student to better understand his location and region starting from his micro-geographic environment and, as an individual, facilitates him to understand his country and the world we live in. As its name implies, local geography teaching is based on conveying an area's features separating it from other areas to the individuals through education and on enabling the individuals to learn the physical, human and economic factors of firstly their environment and region and then of the country and world in which we live. In addition, it aims to generalize their information, make them an inference by establishing different correlations and use what they have learned throughout their lives based on what individuals are learned. Local geography teaching helps students to recognize the environment where their schools are located, to use the theoretical knowledge in the books and develop a practical ability in this direction, to contribute to the formation of the opinion of sustainable development and to develop citizenship bonds by also stimulating love of country and nation. 101 social studies teachers (including 6 voluntary participants from Düzce, Erzurum, Kahramanmaraş, Kocaeli, Trabzon and Şırnak) working in predominantly Kayseri and Bolu in 2014-2015 school year were participated in the research. Qualitative research method was used in the study. A feedback form consisted of 8 open-ended questions prepared by ourselves was used in the study. The findings obtained from this form were analyzed using descriptive analysis method, presenting frequency and percentage distributions in table. The following conclusions were reached in the study. It has been established that social studies teachers participating in the research were described local geography teaching as "teaching students the geography subjects by benefiting from immediate surroundings" and "teaching them the geographical features of the environment where we live". Participants have stated that they could benefit from the subjects such as land forms, climate and its types, economic and social life, population and settlement, geographical regions, transport, tourism and industry, agriculture and livestock in the course on local geography teaching. In line with the views of teachers, 49 of respondents used the statement of "applicable" and 30 of them used the statement of "applicable if a number of conditions can be met", regarding the applicability of the local geography teaching in the social studies lessons. Based on these results it has been determined that 78% of the participants (Applicable + Conditional Applicable) hold a positive view about the applicability of local geography teaching to social studies. Social studies teachers in the study presented their views that local geography teaching will provide permanent learning for the students, enable them to learn by seeing, doing and experiencing on site, help them recognize the place and environment where they live and are found and allow them to more easily grasp the geography subjects. It has been found that participants wanted to be "economic activities of our local environment", "climate and vegetation of our local environment" and "physical properties of our local geography" among the most important ones of the geography subjects they desired to include in social studies curriculum. Based on these findings, we can be said that social studies teachers wanted classical geography subjects to focus mainly on the local subjects. In courses on social studies, the most important ones of obstacles to doing local geography teaching activities are "bureaucratic obstacles / legal procedures", "financial / economic impossibilities" and "insufficient period of social studies". It has been established that the most important one of suggestions offered by social studies teachers participated in the study in order to increase the number of local geography teaching activities and improve their quality is to increase the number of field trip and observation activities. Keywords: Local Geography, Local Geography Teaching, Social Studies Teaching, Teachers' Views