Abstract:

Citizenship, democracy and lifelong learning are among the most recurrent terms on accouunt of practice and thinking in the 21st century .Citizenship education is an important part of general education and democracy education. Citizenship education is commonly understood to include four main aspects such as (a) political literacy, (b) critical thinking, (c) social attitudes and (d) values and active participation. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the opinions of the pre-service teachers who study at the department of primary school education social sciences teaching, concerning the objectives of the citizenship education in the context with the curriculum of primary school citizenship and democracy education. This study was designed as a qualitative research method. 20 pre-service teachers in their 8th academic term participated into the study through the intentional sampling method. The question as “What are your opinions concerning the objectives of the citizenship education in the context with the curriculum of primary school citizenship and democracy education?” was used as an open ended question in the data collection tool to ask pre-service teachers’ opinions. The data were analyzed through the content analysis which is one of the qualitative techniques by the researchers. Based on the pre-service teachers’ opinions regarding the objectives of the citizenship, it was mostly stated that the objectives should be applicable rather than theoretical, develop awareness level, be respectful for the values of both ones’ society and others, act according to social rules, undertake responsibilities as a good and active citizen.

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