Kastamonu Eğitim Dergisi (Jul 2019)
Comparison of Ecological Citizenship Levels of Teacher Candidates Studying at Different Departments
Abstract
Preventing major environmental disasters and finding solutions to environmental problems have become one of the important issues of the century we live in. However, from the second half of the 20th century, it cannot be said that the environmental problems that have reached global dimensions have been dealt with successfully. Environmental problems can be resolved by changing the behavior of the individuals that causes these problems. This can be achieved through education. Education is an important means of raising a good citizen. Nowadays, a good citizen is also an ecological citizen. Ecological citizen protects both his/her rights as well as the rights of the nature. To accomplish this, he/she takes responsibilities. It plays an active role in protecting and sustaining the world we live in, and acts with a sense of justice. Teachers play an important role in helping the citizens acquire this new understanding. Especially pre-school teachers, primary school teachers, social studies teachers and science teachers are influential on children to become ecological citizens. Therefore, the ecological citizenship level of the teacher candidates will be effective for the children to be ecological citizens, when the candidates start profession. The purpose of this research is to identify and compare ecological citizenship levels of prospective teachers studying at different departments. In order to realize this aim, the Ecological Citizenship Scale (EVO) developed by Karatekin and Uysal (2017) was applied to a total of 528 teacher candidates trained in classroom teacher, social studies teacher, science teacher and preschool teacher departments. In the study, descriptive survey model was used. As a result of this research, it was seen that the teacher candidates were moderate ecological citizens. It has been seen that there is no significant correlation between the department and ecological citizenship levels. There was a significant difference in the dimension of responsibility in favor of primary education teacher candidates when compared to social studies education, preschool education teacher candidates. Among the dimensions of ecological citizenship, the teacher candidates had the lowest average score in the participation dimension, had the highest average score in the dimension of right and justice
