Session Information
10 SES 01 C, Talking about Teacher Education and Identity
Paper Session
Contribution
Turkey has been a candidate country to join the European Union since 1999. On the threshold of being a partner of European Union (EU), Turkey's accession to the union depends on meeting the criteria of EU. Turkey continues to take determined steps towards full membership of the union. The most fundamental issues of Turkey among many criteria are the development of democracy and human rights, the institutionalization of free market economy and establishment of modern life standards in every field (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2016). Democracy and Human Rights sector of European Commission declares that democracy and human rights are universal values that should be supported around the world (European Commission, 2016). Believing in the main solution of relieving the poverty and eradicate social, economic or political exclusion, European Union encourages the democratization of the partner countries. While Turkey has many attempts to get an EU entrance ticket, the country faced with a severe undemocratic attempt of a failed military coup in July 2016. Since then, the government declared the post-coup state of emergency which was extended and still continues. The numbers of 2017 show that 50 thousand people have been arrested, more than 150 thousand people dismissed from government jobs, and activities of hundreds of media outlets, associations and businesses have been terminated (Chicagotribune, 2017; Reuters, 2017).
The value of democracy, the need for democracy, and the threats of democracy have long been discussed by both the ruling party and the oppositions of it in Turkey. Considering the importance of teacher education for the democracy which have been linked above, the present study attempts to figure out Turkish pre-service teachers’ concept of rights, responsibilities, and freedom parameters of democracy in the times of dramatic social events in Turkey. More specifically, the purpose of the study is to determine the opinions of pre-school education teacher candidates on their observed practices and expectations in relation to the rights, freedoms and responsibilities parameters of democracy. Research questions of the study are stated as following;
- What are the observed experiences of teacher candidates on the practices of democracy in relation to rights, freedoms, and responsibilities?
- What are the democratic expectations of teacher candidates in terms of rights, freedoms, and responsibilities?
- Is there a significant mean difference between teacher candidates’ democratic expectations and observed democratic experiences with respect to their gender, grade, and the place that they live?
Method
This is a quantitative case study having a survey research design. To gather data a questionnaire were used developed by Gokce (2014). The questionnaire has a scale entitled Democratic Indicators in the Parameters of Right, Freedom, and Responsibility Scale composed of 44 items. These items were asked to rate in two columns aimed to explore students’ observed democratic experiences and democratic expectations in terms of rights, freedoms, and responsibilities. The opinions on the scale were rated between 1 to 7 points through “never experienced” and “always experienced,” and “not expected” and “most expected.” Some of the sample items are following; “I have equal rights to be educated,” “I can freely express my thoughts,” “I have equal opportunities to recruit in a job at public institutions.” Data were collected from 280 teacher candidates at the department of early childhood education at a university in Nicosia, Cyprus in 2015-2016 academic year; and the response rate was 46.1 % (N=129). Among these students, 105 (81.4%) of them were female and 22 (17.1%) of them were male. 71.3% of the students were aged between 19-22 years. Teacher candidates’ reports of their expectations and experiences about democracy in terms of rights, freedom, and responsibility were collected by the seven-point scale and analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistical methods. Gathered data were screened for missing values and for incorrect data entry. To examine the factor structure of the scale, the researchers performed an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Before the analysis, the researchers tested the assumptions of the EFA, which included proof of metric variables, correlations above .30, Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity, KMO (Kaiser-Mayer Olkin) value (>.60), multivariate normality, and absence of outliers. To explore the effect of gender (female, male), grade (1 to 4 grades), and the place that they live (metropol, city, district, town, village) on teacher candidates’ ratings of the democratic experiences and expectations, a 2x4x5 Factorial MANOVA was employed. To prevent the excessive inflation of Type I and Type II error rates, multivariate analysis was preferred to univariate analysis (Haase & Ellis, 1987). The present study has two dependent variables namely observed/experienced democratic values and expected democratic values.
Expected Outcomes
EFA yielded for four factors with eigenvalues>1.0, and 44 items with factor loadings >.30. The three-factor solution accounted for 48% of the variance. The factors were labeled as in original scale rights, freedom, and responsibilities. The findings indicated that teacher candidates have high expectations on the parameters of democracy. However, their democratic experiences in daily life were relatively than what they had expected. The present paper aimed to explore the democratic experiences and expectations with respect to democratic parameters of Turkish student teachers. The results showed that there is a difference between the experienced democracy and the expected democracy. Although the student teachers had high expectations, their experiences are moderately low in each parameter of democracy. Obviously the political stance of Turkey has the major role on these results. Modern, secular and democratic Turkey was established in 1923. Since then, it has been faced with several military coups; 1960 military coup d'état, 1971 military memorandum, 1980 military coup d'état, 1993 alleged Turkish military coup, 1997 post-modern military coup, and 2016 military coup d'état attempt. After the 2016 attempt, Turkey has been ruled in the state of emergency. In the report of The Economist’s Democracy Index of Intelligence Unit (2014), Turkey was found as approaching to authoritarian regime. Furthermore, the Freedom House (2015) reported that Turkey was rated in “partly free” category and labeled as “drifted much further from democratic norms” in their World Freedom Report 2015 (p.13). Considering all these reports and many others, it can be concluded that the findings of this study were not surprising. As Sehr (1997) contends schools, which are places for socialization, are the best places to teach and save the democracy. Particularly teachers play a crucial role in promoting democracy. These political circumstances in Turkey give a birth to the need of teaching democracy.
References
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