Energy is one of the leading conditions of economic activities in all developed or developing countries. The significance of energy and energy requirement is increasing every day. Nuclear energy has emerged to be one of the options to meet the growing energy requirement (Temurcin & Aliagaoglu, 2003). A revival of interest has occurred on nuclear energy since the beginning of the twenty-first century (Whitfield, Rosa, Den & Dietz, 2009).

The future of nuclear energy not only depends on economical and technical factors, but also depends on social acceptability (van der Pligt, van der Linden & Ester, 1982). The acceptability of nuclear energy programs will depend on the reactions of people (Venables, Pidgeon, Simmons, Henwood & Parkhill, 2009). The acceptability of nuclear energy is not just a matter of public risk perception, but also the matter of beliefs and values (van der Pligt, et al., 1982). Public attitudes, values and perceptions on nuclear energy should be understood and the policies about nuclear energy should be adopted by public (Whitfield, et al., 2009). Nuclear energy can cause an extraordinary concern among people (van der Pligt, et al., 1982). To ensure public support for the issue of nuclear energy need to be addressed effectively and reliably (Adamantiades & Kessides, 2009).

The social aspects about the construction of nuclear power plants in Turkey remain very uncertain. The nuclear power plant issue at the technical levels has been discussed, but the social dimension of the issue has been ignored and the social acceptability has not been investigated. Individuals' views should be examined in order to explain the social acceptability of construction of nuclear power plants (Palabıyık, Yavas & Aydın, 2010).

The purpose of this study is tointroduce pre-service teachers’ views about the nuclear power plants and the construction of nuclear power plants in Turkey.

Adamantiades, A. & Kessides, I. (2009). Nuclear power for sustainable development: current status and future prospects. Energy Policy, 37(12), 5149-5166. Palabıyık, H., Yavas, H. & Aydın, M. (2010). Türkiye’de nükleer santral kurulabilir mi? çatışmadan uzlaşıya: türkiye’de nükleer enerji projelerinde sosyal kabul sorunu ve halkın reddetme sendromunun araştırılması. Girişimcilik ve Kalkınma Dergisi, 5(2), 175-201. Stemler, S. (2001). An overview of content analysis. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 7(17). Temurcin, K. & Aliagaoglu, A. (2003). Nükleer enerji ve tartışmalar ışığında türkiye’de nükleer enerji gerçeği. Coğrafi Bilimler Dergisi, 1 (2), 25-39. van der Pligt, J., van der Linden, J. & Ester, P. (1982). Attitudes to nuclear energy: beliefs, values and false consensus. Journal of Enviromental Psychology, 2, 221-231. Venables, D., Pidgeon, N., Simmons, P., Henwood, K. & Parkhill, K. (2009). Living with nuclear power: a q-method study of local community perceptions. Risk analysis, 8, 1089-1104. Whitfield, S.C., Rosa, E.A., Den, A. & Dietz, T. (2009). The future of nuclear power: value orientations and perceptions. Risk analysis, 3, 425-437.