Summer holiday practices in social studies education: An action research

Social studies is a course that facilitates students' adaptation to society and provides students with knowledge, skills and values. However, the limited duration of this course, which is given at school, has limitations in terms of time for students to turn the desired characteristics into behaviours. Summer holidays, which include a period of time outside of school, are a good resource for the knowledge, skills and values related to the social studies course to become available in daily life. The aim of this study is to develop students' knowledge, skills, values and acquisitions related to social studies course by creating planned activities during summer holidays within the scope of social studies education. In this study, action research, one of the qualitative research designs, was adopted. The research was conducted with students who completed the 6th grade and their families during the summer holidays of the 2022-2023 academic year. The data of the study were obtained through semi-structured interviews, observation, researcher diary, student diary, video recordings of the implementation process and validity committee data. The data were analysed through descriptive analysis. As a result of the research, it was revealed that students gained knowledge, skills and values related to the social studies course during the summer holiday. The social studies activities carried out during the summer holiday were found useful by the participants and the participants suggested that the activities should be made continuous. As a result of the research, various suggestions for research and practice were presented.