Understanding changes about 1998 and 2005 Turkish social studies curricula in the light of teachers' perceptions

Abstract

Social studies and related courses have been taught in Turkey for years. In the last two decades, two reforms occurred in social studies education in 1998 and 2005. The aim of this study is to elicit social studies teachers' perceptions about the changes brought by the 1998 and 2005 social studies curricular changes. Within the context of qualitative approach, this study used phenomenology, interviewing twelve social studies teachers who were teaching both 1998 and 2005 curricula in different public primary schools of Trabzon city center. The data were collected using a semi-standardized interview protocol. Participants were invited to the study by using a snowball strategy and the data were collected in the fall semester of 2011-2012 academic years. The collected data were analyzed using content analysis. The results of the study showed that contrary to the 1998 curriculum reforms, a majority of social studies teachers supported the 2005 curriculum except for presentation of historical and geographical subjects and they suggested some changes in in-service education to improve the quality of teaching the curriculum.