Stimulate awareness about social responsibility in social studies: Teacher views on special days and weeks

With this study, social studies teachers are aimed to determine the views on benefiting from Special Days and Weeks to stimulate awareness of students about social responsibility. In addition, impacts of some variables as gender, education level, years of service, accommodation unit on participants were also examined in this study.A total of 338 people, who are located in Manisa province and consist of the social studies teachers working in 198 secondary schools, have participated in this research.A 23 item scale prepared by the researcher has been developed in order to determine social studies teachers' views on benefiting from Special Days and Weeks to create responsibility. The data obtained by using surveys were analyzed by using statistics program. Frequency (f) and percentage (%) calculations were performed to describe the personal information, comments and the views of the teachers surveyed for the purposes of the research. Factor and reliability analyzes were performed in order to determine the construct validity of the scale used in the study. Materials whose factor loading are below 0.45 and inappropriate are removed. KMO value was found .66 and the value of internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach Alpha) that is calculated for reliability of the study was found as α = 0.85. Findings related to material reliability studies show that the scale has a reliable structure According to the results of the survey, it is observed that Special Days and Weeks are effective for social studies teachers to create awareness about social responsibility. Therefore, there are some differences in sex, years of service, education level and positions variables of teachers' views about Special Days and Weeks on gaining social responsibility in social studies lessons. Keywords: Social Studies, Social Responsibility, Special Days and Weeks, Teacher Feedback.