There is a growing interest on the implementation and evaluation of ethical issues in education (Bredekamp & Willer, 1993). Indeed, a code of ethics is very helpful for describing values which are important to lead people’s interactions to others (Torda, 2004). According to code of ethics in early childhood education, this interaction is constructed between the teacher and children, families, colleagues, community and society (NAEYC, 2005). In Turkey, ethic is defined as the evaluation of human behaviors on the basis of ethical rules. Turkish Early Childhood Education Program explained ethics in terms of four important aspects that Feeney and Freeman (1999) identified: teachers’ responsibilities toward (i) children, (ii) parents, (iii) colleagues, and (iv) society. Specifically, when analyzing the early childhood teachers’ responsibilities toward young children, the major purpose is not only providing secure, healthy, and sensitive environment, but also supplying their nutritional needs (Ministry of National Education, 2006). Promoting gender equity in the classrooms and helping children with special needs could be considered as teachers’ responsibility for children. Children started to improve their understanding about “male” and “female” on the basis of the society’s classification of roles in terms of gender (Trepanier-Street & Romatowski, 1999), therefore early childhood teachers might have an influence in such classification. Inclusion can be stated as a way to support children with disabilities with the help of teachers and peers by providing sensitive and age appropriate environments (Rimm-Kaufman, Voorhees, Snell, & La Paro, 2003). While some of the early childhood teachers believe that inclusive settings play an important role on educating children with disabilities (Eiserman, Shisler, & Healey, 1995), some others had some worries about their insufficient knowledge about education of these children (Dinnebell, McInerney, Fox, & Juchartz-Pendry, 1998). Therefore, early childhood teachers’ understanding of inclusion is likely to influence their teaching practice. The aim of this study was to investigate pre-service early childhood teachers’ views about the ethical issues in early childhood education. More specifically, the study focused on pre-service early childhood teachers’ understanding of gender and inclusion issues in the classrooms. The following research questions were sought: 1) How do pre-service teachers define ethics for young children? 2) What are the views of pre-service early childhood teachers about gender? 3) What are the views of pre-service early childhood teachers about inclusion?

The study was conducted in a large public university in Turkey. The participants of this study were senior students in an Early Childhood Education program. The data were collected through (i) interviews with five 4th-year pre-service early childhood teachers and (ii) reflection papers written by 20 pre-service early childhood teachers about two “cases” which were related to gender and inclusion issues in order to obtain in-depth information. None of the participants have been enrolled in a course about ethics. All interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts of interviews were inductively coded and categorized under emerging themes.

The results revealed that interviewed participants’ understanding of ethics was about being equal to all children. They had the view that the role of the early childhood teachers on young children’s development was very crucial in terms of ethical issues. While some participants thought that they were competent in dealing with ethical issues, some thought that they might not be competent since they did not receive any intensive education about it. Participants also expressed that gender discrimination was generally occurred in categorizing children’s plays and their play materials in the early childhood classrooms. Moreover, participants had different views of inclusion of children with special needs in their classrooms. It is expected that the results will contribute to development of teacher education programs.