Social studies education in pre-school: Investigation of teacher's opinions

Social studies in Turkey, is given as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary school levels. However, the individual's need for social information is so important that it can not be limited to only certain educational periods, because the individual's need for social knowledge is a lifelong process, starting with the need to recognize himself and to make sense of his environment. One of the education levels that need the most social information is preschool education. For this reason, the purpose of the research is to determine the opinions and in-class practices of preschool teachers regarding social information. Basic qualitative research has been used in qualitative research approaches in research. The data from the study were obtained from interviews with 40 preschool teachers who were working in the main schools attached to the Ministry of National Education in the academic year of 2017-2018. The obtained data were analyzed by descriptive analysis from qualitative data analysis techniques. As a result of the research, it is found that a significant part of the pre-school teachers' perceptions of social information are composed of History Teaching, Geography Teaching and Citizenship Information; it has been determined that attitudes towards social studies lessons in past education experiences are higher in positive direction. It has been determined that all participants (n: 40) think that social information is necessary in pre-school education and that social information should be included in pre-school education in this direction, and Geography activities are the most important activities that pre-school teachers perform in social information.