Abstract:

Many positive or negative changes occurring in the global era force countries to take the necessary steps to sustain social life and create healthier and more harmonious societies. In this context, especially under the leadership of the United Nations, Sustainable Development Goals were adopted with the participation of 193 countries in 2015. One of the competences related to the individual accepted within the scope of these goals is global competences that reveal the need to be a global citizen. Global competence is defined as the ability to examine local and global problems, to understand, respect and appreciate different perspectives, to communicate and interact openly and effectively with individuals from different places and cultures, and to take action for sustainable development as a common vision. The purpose of this study is to determine the global competence levels of pre-service social studies teachers in terms of variables such as gender, grade level, level of interest in global issues, frequency of following global issues and level of knowledge about global issues. Descriptive survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. The population of the study consisted of a total of 216 pre-service social studies teachers studying at Anadolu University Faculty of Education, Social Studies Teacher Education Undergraduate Programme in the autumn term of the 2022-2023 academic year, including 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades. The Global Competence Scale developed by Brantley-Todd (2017) and adapted into Turkish by Karaca-Akarsu and Özdemir (2021) was used as a data collection tool in the study. SPSS 24 programme was used for the analysis of the scale items. As a result of the research, according to the descriptive analyses of demographic variables, it was found that the level of interest of pre-service social studies teachers in global issues, their level of knowledge about global issues and their frequency of following global issues were at medium and high levels; however, the global competence levels of pre-service social studies teachers did not differ significantly in terms of variables such as gender, grade level, level of interest, frequency of following and level of knowledge.

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