The opinions of teacher regarding the practices of effective citizenship education in social studies course

The purpose of this study is to determine the practices carried out by the teachers toteach effective citizenship education in Social Studies Course and also to determine theeducational needs of teachers in terms of citizenship education. Within the scope of thisstudy, triangulation method was used and among the triangulation types, subsequentexploratory design was employed. According to this design, first qualitative and thenquantitative data were collected.The study was carried out in two steps. In the first step of the study, semi-structuredinterviews were conducted with 24 teachers in December- January in 2005-2006academic year. The data gathered through inteviews, were, at the same time, used todesign the data collection instrument used in the second step of the study. The secondstep of the study was conducted in May-June in 2005-2006 acedemic year. A surveywas administered to 404 teachers in the second step of the study. The Teacher InterviewForm and Survey for Evaluating the Teachers? Effective Citizenship EducationalPractices were used as data collection instruments in the study. Descriptive analysis wasemployed to analyze the data obtained through semi-structured interviews. Thefrequency, percentage, and arithmetic average were used in the analysis of the datagathered through survey. The data collected through survey were analyzed based on theresearch questions and the results were described and evaluated. The results obtainedfrom the study are as follows:• The teachers described the effective citizen as the one who knows and uses hisrights, knows his responsibility and carries them out, and respects the others?rights. Teachers stated that Social Studies course has an important role incitizenship education.• In the education of citizenship subjects in the Social Studies course, the teachersuse the lesson plans that are in the teacher guidebooks sent by the Ministry ofEducation exactly or by making some changes. The teachers stated that in theeducation of citizenship subjects in the Social Studies course, they mostly usedelection activities and as for the materials, they mostly used textbook andreference resources. While teaching citizenship subjects, the teachers also statedthat they associated citizenship subjects with the other courses, disciplines ofsocial sciences, and sub-disciplines. The teachers added that while forming theclassroom setting, they mostly paid attention to the principles of joining theclassroom decisions, obeying, and respecting others. In teaching citizenshipsubjects they mostly cooperated with family, school administration, and otherteachers. Furthermore, they mostly guided students in correcting theirmisbehaviors and in the activities concerning students clubs, certain days andweeks, and national holidays. They concluded that they evaluated students?acquisitions mostly through observations, examinations, tests, and portfolios.• The teachers expressed the effect of socio-economic levels of the families,negative influence of media, and misconceptions of the society as the mostimportant problems.• The teachers stated that in teaching citizenship subjects in Social Studiescourse, they felt the need for further training in terms of planning in citizenshipeducation, methods, sample activities, materials, and evaluation apart fromcitizenship knowledge. The teachers also stated that concerning the citizenshipeducation they needed training on resources, forming democratic classroomenvironment, organizing citizenship activities in school, and studies conductedin citizenship education. The teachers finally suggested that the educationalprogram intended to be carried out regarding effective citizenship education inSocial Studies course should be conducted in seminar periods in 1-10 hours as aseminar.