Opinions of Social Studies Teachers in Turkey on the Polarization between States

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the views of social studies teachers about polarization between states. In this study, in which the phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research designs, was used, a semi-structured interview form was applied to 20 social studies teachers. While preparing the interview form, the opinions of 3 academicians who are experts in the field of social studies were taken. The reason for taking expert opinion is to increase the content validity of the research. While determining the study group of the research, convenient and easily accessible sampling method, which is one of the purposive sampling methods, was used. Descriptive analysis was applied to the data obtained within the scope of the research. The reliability of the research was calculated as 94% according to the reliability formula of Miles and Huberman (1994) [Percent of Agreement = Consensus / (Agreement + Disagreement) x 100]. In the research, the answers given by the social studies teachers to the research questions were collected in 16 codes. At the end of the research, social studies teachers generally described the polarization between states as negative. In addition, social studies teachers emphasized that polarization between states has harmful effects on education, economy, environment and society.