An assessment of teacher?s opinions on the meeting level of the social needs of the social studies curriculum (Case of Diyarbakir city)

The aim of this study is to determine the ideas of the primary school teachers and social studies teachers who teach the 4th and 5th grades on how far the social studies curriculum has met the social needs. We tried to determine whether there?s a statistically significant difference among the teachers? views in terms of branch, teaching experience and school level variables. In this direction of the aim of this study, we tried to answer following questions; Do the ideas of the teachers on 2004 social studies teaching curriculum?s meeting the social needs change according to their educational degree, branch and socio-economical level of the school they work?Social needs that were aimed to be met with the social studies curriculum is divided into seven parts in the study. These are: fulfilling the students? social being, improving the conscious of being a good citizen, making the students use their experience they learnt during the learning process on interaction with the environment, making the students grow in the framework of national and cultural values, causing them to adopt universal values by taking their national identities in the centre, making the students learn where they live and world geography, growing the students as a person who knows his/her rights and does his/her duties.This descriptive study was administered on 775 teachers who work in public primary school in Diyarbakır city centre as social studies teachers and 4th and 5th grade classroom teachers in 2007-2008 academic year. The distribution of the teachers according to their field is like the following; %41 percent of these teachers are 4th grade classroom teachers (n=318), %40 percent of them are 5th grade classroom teachers (n=313) and %19 percent are social studies teachers (n=144). In other words %81 of the teachers is classroom teachers and %19 percent is social studies teachers. The distribution of the teachers according to the socio-economical status of the school they work is like; %28 percent of the teachers work in a good level (n=218), %40 of them work in the middle level (n=306) and %32 percent of them work in a low level schools (n=251)Research data were obtained by means of a scale developed for the Social Studies Curriculum. The Social Studies Curriculum scale consists of 46 items. The items of the scale cover the subjects related to the social needs which can be met by means of social studies curriculum.In order to analyze the validity and reliability of the scale, it was administered on 104 teachers who were randomly selected from 23 schools in Diyarbakır city center to provide the group homogeneity. %43 percent of these teachers are 4th grade classroom teachers (n=45), %39 percent are 5th grade classroom teachers (n=41) and %17 percent of them are social studies teachers (n=18). The reliability of the scale was calculated with Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient and the scale was found reliable. (Cronbach Alpha = .99) According to the result of the factor analysis Social Sciences Curriculum Scale?s KMO value was calculated to be 0.90 and Bartlett?s test was calculated to be 8305,258.Research results were evaluated according to branch, degree and school?s socio-economic level. In comparison with school level and teaching degree, one way ANOVA was used and independent group t test was used to compare the data in terms of branch variable. In a prior examination, when the distribution of the data was found to be non normal, non-parametric statistical techniques were used to analyze the data. Among the techniques used is Kruskall-Wallis H for testing the differences in terms of teaching experience and school?s socio-economic level variables. In the case a significant difference was found in Kruskall-Wallis H test, Mann-Whitney U test was used furthermore to determine among which specific groups the difference was significant. When the distribution of the data was found normal, parametric statistical technique one way ANOVA was used.In the result of the research, it was determined that Social Studies curriculum was found to be efficient in meeting the social needs. The teachers who work at schools having good socio-economic level and those who were new at teaching experience found the social studies curriculum more efficient. Furthermore, in terms of branch variable, social studies teachers found the curriculum more effective than the 4th and 5th grade classroom teachers. In the light of these results to make the new social studies curriculum more effective, it is offered that the schools should improve their physical equipment and the teachers should be given in-service seminars.