Abstract:

This study has studied the influence of the course of Democracy and Human Rights, organized according to the "democratic life-based learning model" on students' perceptions of democracy. The research was carried out by the way of "action research" and consisted of three action stages. The study group was determined by the method of "dimensional sampling". The study group; a state university in Turkey has formed 10 students who continue to graduate in Education Programs and Teaching and Education Management and Control Sciences and take the course of Democracy and Human Rights. In the collection of data, the "Democracy Perception Opinion Form" was used. The collection of data was carried out in two stages, at the beginning and at the end of the process. The data is analyzed using the content analysis method. The findings are presented under the titles “Fundamental Rights and Freedoms”, “Democracy”, “The Supremacy of Law”, “The Division of Powers”, “The Independence of Judgment”, “Multicalism”, “Election”, “The Opposition” and “Justice”. It is determined that students have positive and negative perceptions of the necessity of democracy, their negative views on the state of the people’s sovereignty and democracy in practice at the beginning of the period have changed in the positive direction at the end of the period. According to the democratic life-based learning model, the course organized has achieved a positive impact on the perceptions of students about democracy.