Abstract:

As is known, social studies course is taught from 4th grade to the end of 7th grade within the scope of basic education. Social studies course, focused mainly on raising active citizenship, is given (lectured) by teachers who received training on this field. This study was carried out to reveal social studies prospective teachers’ active citizenship self-efficacies within the scope of levels of empathy and acceptance of differences. For this, scales of active citizenship self-efficacies, of empathy level and acceptance of differences were applied to 378 in total of prospective teachers who are studying at faculty of education at two state universities.  Data obtained of scales were analysed using SPSS package software. Relationship of the applied scales with faculty, class, rural-urban origin was examined. Independent t test for unrelated two samples, and one-way analysis of variance for unrelated k-sample were carried out, and multiple regression analysis was performed to reveal predicting situation/state of level of active citizenship self-efficacies by level of empathy and acceptance of differences. As result of the analysis, it was found that prospective teachers’ active citizenship self-efficacies and level of empathy were high; that of acceptance of differences was very high. According to this, empathy and acceptance of differences explain the situation/state of active citizenship self-efficacies by 24%. In terms of multicultural education, empathy and acceptance of differences are effective in raising active citizens. active citizenship requires not only participation in politics, but also high acceptance and empathy for different segments of society.

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