Secondary school teachers' understanding and application of social responsibility: The sample of Antalya

The main purpose of this study is to find out what the secondary school teachers? views on social responsibility are.A questionnaire developed by the researcher, surveying the literature and asking teachers? opinions about social responsibility, was used as a data-collecting instrument. The first part of the paper was designed to collect data about teachers? identities. A five point Likert scale, consisting of 33 items, was used to ask the secondary school teachers? views on social responsibility in terms of importance and practice levels. The data was obtained from 560 teachers who worked in Anatolian or General High Schools in Antalya.SSPS 13.0 was used for statistical analyses and for the structural validity of the data-collecting instrument, explanatory factor analysis was applied. According to the results of this analysis, four dimensions were obtained: ?Modeling?, ?Contribution and Support?, ?Respect and Responsibility? and ?Social Identity?. Finally, LISREL was used to confirm the integrity of the model. Frequency, percentages, t-test, one-way variance analysis (ANOVA) and Post-Hoc (Scheffe) test techniques were used to analyze the data.The findings of the study are as follows:1. Teachers? views on social responsibility in terms of importance level showed a significant difference in all dimensions in terms of gender; in ?Modeling? and ?Social Identity? dimensions in terms of membership to a non-governmental organization; in ?Social Identity? dimension in terms of age; and in ?Contribution and Support? and ?Respect and Responsibility? dimensions in terms of seniority.2. Teachers? views on social responsibility in terms of importance level were not differentiated meaningfully in any dimensions in terms of school type, marital status, education background, the number of children they have, the socioeconomic status of the students? parents and their profession.3. Teachers? views on social responsibility in terms of practice level showed a significant difference in ?Contribution and Support? dimension in terms of gender; in ?Social Identity? dimension in terms of membership to a non-governmental organization; in ?Contribution and Support? and ?Respect and Responsibility? dimensions in terms of age; in ?Contribution and Support? dimension in terms of the number of children they have; in ?Modeling? in terms of education background; and in ?Modeling?, ?Respect and Responsibility? and ?Contribution and Support? dimensions in terms of seniority.4. Teachers? views on social responsibility in terms of practice level were not differentiated meaningfully in any dimensions in terms of school type, marital status the socioeconomic status of the students? parents and their profession.5. According to the teachers? views on social responsibility, the level of importance was higher than that of practice in all dimensions.6. When the social responsibility dimension were compared in terms importance level, the following pairs showed meaningful differences: ?Modeling and ?Contribution and Support?, ?Modeling and Social Identity?, ?Social Identity and Respect and Responsibility? and ?Contribution and Support and Respect and Responsibility?7. When the social responsibility dimension were compared in terms practice level, all the pairs showed meaningful differences: ?Modeling and ?Contribution and Support?, ?Modeling and Respect and Responsibility?, ?Modeling and Social Identity?, ?Social Identity and Contribution and Support?, ?Social Identity and Respect and Responsibility? and ?Contribution and Support and Respect and Responsibility?.