Özet:

One of the most appropriate ways of realising current prominent aims of history teaching today is discussing controversial and sensitive issues. However, in order to achieve these goals, it is very important for teacher candidates to be able to get sufficient training for teaching these issues. Because teaching these controversial and sensitive issues calls for more evidence usage compared to other subjects in the curriculum and it also calls for presenting different perspectives. Moreover, additional strategies to be used can enable teachers an efficient teaching possibility. As it is understood, a sufficient training for history teachers during their university education will enable them to handle these issues relevantly in their professional lives. Because of this reason, this study aims to identify teacher candidates’ ideas on getting education for teaching controversial and sensitive issues.  Data of the qualitative study have been obtained through open-ended survey and have been analysed with content analysis. The study has been carried out with 19 male and 13 female, 32 last year students of Ataturk University, Kazım Karabekir Faculty of Education, History Teaching Department in 2013-2014 academic year. Data obtained show that teacher candidates who expressed that they got education on teaching these issues mostly in History Teaching Methods Course, said that they could not get enough education on teaching controversial and sensitive issues in their major area courses. Teacher candidates have expressed the Armenian/Deportation Problem as the most controversial and sensitive issue. As for the teacher candidates, this problem has also been expressed as the most controversial and sensitive issue handled in undergraduate courses. Because of this, within the scope of this study, history teacher candidates were presented with a case study on the Armenian/Deportation Problem and their views on how they would act when they encounter such a situation in their professional lives. It has also been aimed to inform about the quality of education on teaching controversial and sensitive issues under the findings of the case studies. As a result of study, teacher candidates have indicate that they would pay attention to some issues which can be considered radical in a very sensitive subject in our country such as Armenian/Deportation Problem. However, they did not state any emphasis on the use of approaches such as evidence-based learning and multiperspectivity which are crucial to the teaching of these issues. 

Anahtar Kelimeler: