Infusing Global Perspectives in Social Studies Education in Turkey: Pre-service Social Studies Teachers

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how pre-service social studies teachers understood global perspectives within social studies education and how they interpreted social studies teacher education program in terms of providing global perspectives. Phenomenological design was employed in order to gather the data. The data obtained as a result of two semi-structured interviews with 11 pre-service social studies teachers and participants’ journals were analyzed by using NVivo 10 package program. The data were analyzed with inductive analysis. The data were collected in the spring semester of the 2009-2010 academic year. Findings indicated that the participants’ definitions or thoughts about global perspectives were shaped by their belief about globalization. The participants also stated that teaching social studies by employing global perspectives would help students to understand their own prejudice and stereotypes about different cultures, ethnic and religious groups and teacher education programs are incompetent to provide such training.