Teaching of basic concepts related to democracy in social studies course and misconceptions

Students need to understand and learn the basic concepts of democracy correctly in order to gain effective democratic citizenship competencies during the course of social studies lesson. In social studies courses, it is important for democracy education to reveal how effectively democracy is taught conceptually. The aim of this research is to determine what are the basic misconceptions of students about democracy and how the basic concepts of democracy are taught in social studies course. The research was carried out using the case study pattern. The participants of the study consist of 7th grade students and a social studies teacher at a secondary school in Eskişehir city center. Word association test for students, unstructured observation, semi-structured observation forms were used as a data collection method. The data of this research described with descriptive analysis. In the study, some misconceptions of students about the basic concepts of democracy were identified. Misconceptions have been made about concepts such as democracy, freedom, justice, law and sovereignty. It was determined that students made correct conceptualization in concepts such as rights, equality, election and participation. In the social studies course, it was seen that the teacher used traditional teaching methods in the teaching of concepts. Based on the results of the study, in the social studies course, it is suggested that different teaching methods and techniques should be employed in the teaching of basic concepts related to democracy. Keywords: Social studies, Concept teaching, Misconception, Democracy.