Abstract:

The main objective of this research is determining the views of academics working at education faculties in Turkey on alternative education / schools. In accordance with this basic aim, in the 2017-2018 academic year, academics working at education faculties in universities located in Turkey were reached via e-mail and data were collected through semi-structured interview forms designed on the topic named "Alternative Education / School". The participant group was composed of a total of 93 academics working at education faculties from 36 different universities in Turkey. In parallel with the aim of the study, the present research is qualitative and the collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. The findings suggested that alternative education/school was evaluated from different aspects, while some of the academics stated that they had no information about this subject, the others accepted that they had limited theoretical information on the subject. The views on alternative education/schools were categorized into three as positive, negative, and cautious. At the same time, the academics who think that alternative education/schools are not fitting to Turkey’s culture and understanding of education, there are serious conflicts with the current school system; they stated that alternative education/schools would not be able to function properly. In addition, in the field of teacher training in education faculties, it can be positively welcomed to provide trainings towards "alternative education / schools" not only "theoretically" but also practically.

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