Perspectives of social studies teachers on global issues

Abstract

This qualitative study aimed to disclose the perspectives of eight volunteer social studies teachers on global issues employed in secondary schools in Denizli province with different socioeconomic and socio-cultural structures and assessed how they reflect their notions in the classrooms. The study used a semi-structured interview form to collect data. The issue-specific data collected from the interviews was presented as a table with themes, categories, and codes, along with actual quotations from the teachers who provided their responses. Accordingly, the study divided the identified global issues into six categories: 'Nature-Related Issues,' 'Informatics-Related Issues,' 'Politics-Related Issues,' 'Economy-Related Issues,' 'Health-Related Issues,' and 'Popular Culture-Related Issues.' Teachers appeared to perform various awareness-raising activities in the classroom to bring these issues to their student's attention. Analyzing the views of social studies teachers supporting all these categories revealed that they discussed global issues from many dimensions, albeit failed to address topics such as education, racism, war, colonialism, human rights, domestic violence, nuclear energy and its use, extinct animals, or the ozone layer's depletion. Contrary to the current literature, however, teachers explicitly expressed the issues related to child labor, informatics, and popular culture as problems at the global level.