The use of fundamental rights as active and responsible citizens: Tendencies of social studies teacher candidates

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the tendencies of social studies teacher candidates, whose primary purpose is to raise active and responsible citizens, towards the use of fundamental rights. The study adopted a survey methodology and reached a total of 356 students studying in the Social Studies Teacher Education undergraduate program at 7 universities in different regions of Turkey. The data collected from these students with a Likert-type survey of ten dimensions, consisting of 48 items and five options, were analyzed using the SPSS 22.0 package program. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA. The analysis of the collected data showed that the scores obtained from the sub-factors of the survey, access to court and exercising consumer rights, differed significantly in favor of women, and conscious citizenship and taking responsibility differed significantly in favor of men. While none of the scores obtained from all sub-dimensions of the survey differed significantly according to the place of residence of the students, the right to petition, the right to lockout, the right to access court and conscious citizenship and taking responsibility differed according to the undergraduate class level. The overall assessment of the results is that the tendencies towards the exercise of fundamental rights do not differ significantly by students' gender, class level and place of residence, and the overall tendencies in exercising these rights are above average, but not very high.