Citizenship education according to parents' views

Every state established in the world attaches importance to raising citizens in order to continue its political existence. In order to achieve these basic objectives of the states, there are citizenship trainings specific to their countries. In Türkiye, the aim of citizenship education is expressed as raising sensitive and active citizens who adopt both traditional values and universal values, have high-level thinking skills such as critical thinking and creative thinking. Citizenship education is a learning process that starts from the first years of individuals' lives and continues throughout their lives and cannot be limited to formal education. In this process, families, teachers, school, social media tools and society have an important effect on creating citizenship awareness. Essentially, citizenship consciousness is internalized by gaining experience as a result of experience. Therefore, families are the most important social institution in shaping children's perceptions of citizenship and citizenship education. Families are the first institution where children are socialized and the first social environment where citizenship education begins. Children realize their first learning about citizenship education by taking their family members as an example. Studies on citizenship education reveal that the thoughts and behaviors of families have an important place in raising children as citizens. For this reason, the views of families on citizenship education are important. In line with this importance, in this research, it is aimed to reveal the perspectives of parents, who are one of the most important stakeholders of citizenship education, on citizenship education. The research was carried out in accordance with the basic qualitative research approach. The study group of the research; It consists of 35 secondary school parents selected according to the maximum diversity sampling technique, one of the purposeful sampling methods, in the province of Istanbul in the 2020-2021 academic year. Interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview form as a data collection tool. The data obtained from the interviews were evaluated with descriptive analysis. As a result of the research; It was revealed that the parents defined the concept of citizenship and citizenship characteristics in line with the new republican citizenship understanding. The parents stated that the definition and function of citizenship education is to raise awareness of unity and solidarity, to raise children who are devoted to the country and to serve, and to provide value education. It was concluded that they received a knowledge-based citizenship education during their school years. They are of the opinion that there should be a separate course for citizenship education. While expressing the values that should be taught in citizenship education as respect, love, honesty and patriotism; skills as critical thinking, empathy, problem solving and decision making. They have a common view that it is effective for families to be role models in citizenship education, and that they are responsible for citizenship education at home and at school. The parents stated that they observed the citizenship education given to their children in their children's behavior. The parents stated that negative examples arising from the environment and social media are a problem in citizenship education. They made suggestions such as giving advice on the solution of problems, directing them to social activities and teaching the conscious use of social media. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the parents saw and supported citizenship education positively and thought that citizenship education would be realized with values education.