Teacher Opinions on the Concepts Preparing Students to a Democratic Life in the First Grade Social Studies Course

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to determine the teacher opinions on whether the concepts preparing the students to the democratic life in the first grade social studies course theme "My School Excitement" are convenient for the level of the students. In the present study, the phenomenon science model, which is one of the qualitative research models, is used. Criterion sampling, one of the purposive sampling methods, is applied. The study group consists of 13 primary school first grade teachers who are teaching at 4 primary schools in Hendek district of Sakarya province in 2010-2011 Education period. For the interviews, semi-structured interview form, which is prepared by the researcher, is used. Content analysis is employed in the analysis of the data. According to the research results, all the teachers, who have participated the research, do not find "ballot and club" concepts appropriate for the first grade level. "selection/election, and vote" concepts are not found appropriate for the first grade level by almost all of the teachers who have taken part in the research. Teachers who find the related concepts appropriate for the first grade level state that they find the concepts appropriate in terms of experience, awareness, readiness and development. Teachers who do not find the related concepts appropriate for the first grade level gave reasons such as; the concepts are abstract, students' readiness levels are not appropriate, they act individually and the concepts are not included in their lives. For these concepts while some of the teachers suggest that it would be appropriate for the second term of first grade, the majority of the teachers suggest that it would be appropriate to teach these concepts in the second, third or fourth years.