| dc.description.abstract | Introduction Values that make culture and society meaningful (Fichter, 2012; 167) refer to the principles, beliefs, ideas and life standards that shape our behaviors, effect our decisions about a topic, direct our assessments related to various beliefs and actions (Halstead and Taylor, 1996: 5). Values tell individuals in a society what is important, what should be preferred, and in short, how they should live (Akbaş, 2008). Values differ from one individual, society or nation to another. However, some values are shared by many societies or nations. These values may be described as basic universal values that determine the basic criteria, being approved, adopted, and taught by most societies (Güzel, 2010; 52). Behaviors, attitudes and values which are argued to be universal are the products of the social system that include the experiences to that date and represent individuals’ general way of understanding (Koç, 2007; 27). In this sense, universal values can be defined as the values that concern many nations, societies and people. Values such as democracy, human rights and liberty, peace, tolerance, love, respect, independence, being civilized, science and scientific thought, arts, equality, environmental sensitivity, justice, caring about family, being diligent, cooperation, sensitivity, honesty, being healthy, responsibility, cleanness, patriotism, and charity can be classified as universal values (Parlakyıldız, 1999; Demircioğlu and Tokdemir, 2008; 72; Ercan, 2001; Güzel, 2013; 52). In addition to the universal properties of values, some of the values are characterized as national values depending on how they are perceived by different societies and nations (Ercan, 2001). Purpose The primary of the study is to identify how elementary teacher candidates classify values. Based on this aim, the following questions addressed in this study are as follows: 1. Which values are classified as national values according to the elementary teacher candidates’ values? 2. Which values are classified as universal values according to the elementary teacher candidates’ values? 3. Which values are classified as both national and universal values according to the elementary teacher candidates’ values? 4. Are there any relationships between elementary teacher candidates’ classifying of values and; a. Their gender, b. Their university, c. The region where they come from,5. What are the differences between national and universal values according to the elementary teacher candidates? Method Survey model was employed in this study which aimed to identify the classifications of elementary teacher candidates. In this regard, a questionnaire which was developed by the researchers was used. The questionnaire consisted of three sections. In the first section, the questions were about the participants’ gender, university, and the region where they lived. In the second section, the values from the Social Studies curriculum were given to elementary teacher candidates and they were asked to classify these values as national, universal, or both national and universal. In the third section of the questionnaire, an open-ended question which asked the difference between national and universal values was included. The participants of this study were elementary teacher candidates studying their fourth year at the education faculties of Anadolu University and Inonu University during 2011-2012 academic year. At the end of the data collection process, SPSS was used to analyze the quantitative data. The students’ personal information and answers about value classifications were entered to SPSS program. Descriptive statistics including percentage and frequency were used in the analysis of personal information and value classifications, and chisquare analysis were conducted for determining relationship between personal information and value classifications. In the study, percentage and frequency were used for teacher candidates’ value classifications. Chi-square technique was employed to identify whether there were any relationships between their gender, university, and region with their value classifications. Descriptive analysis technique was used for analyzing the collected qualitative data. Firstly, national and universal values were assigned as themes for analyzing the data. Differences between national and universal values from the teacher candidates’ written statements were classified and frequencies were detected according to these themes. Findings were explained with direct quotations of the teacher candidates’ views. Findings It was found that majority of the elementary teacher candidates (%88) considered folk dances as a national value. It was followed by tradition (%87.5), anthem (%85.3), homeland (%82.1) and culture (%76). The least stated value was being scientific (%4.9) in the sense of national values. It was found that majority of the elementary teacher candidates (%55.4) regarded being scientific as a universal value. It was was followed by peace (%44.6), respect (%42.6), being fair (%42.3), and paying attention to being healthy (%41.5) values. The least stated values in the sense of universal values were folk dance and tradition (%3.8). Most of the teacher candidates defined being fair as both national and universal values. It was followed by equality (52.2), environmentalresponsibility (%51.4), freedom (%50.5), and peace (%50). Folk dance value had the lowest percentage (%8.2) in the sense of both national and universal values. According to this findings, it can be argued that majority of the elementary teacher candidates classified folk dances as a national value while being scientific as a universal value. Furthermore, being fair value was perceived as both national and universal.The result of analyses for the relationships between the elementary teacher candidates’ value classifications, and their gender, university and region revealed a significant difference between the values of “independence, eid, freedom, paying attention to be healthy, arts, and historical monuments” and gender. Significant relation was found between elemantary school teacher candidates’ university and “culture, anthem, historical monument” values. Significant difference was not found between their region and value classification. Most of the teacher candidates explained the distinction between national values and universal values as being specific to a nation, and differentiating one nation from another. In addition, majority of them described the differences between universal values and national values as affecting the whole world, and being approved by all people. In this sense, the differences between national and universal values that the participants stated seem to coincide with those stated in the literature (Inal, 1998; Parlakyıldız, 1999; Ercan, 2001; Somuncu, 2008). Results and Discussion As a result of this study that aimed to identify elementary teacher candidates' classification of national and universal values, it was found that the value mostly classified as national by the teacher candidates was folk dances. Most of the teacher candidates selecting folk dances as the value that best reflected the national culture could be due to the feature of folk dances as representing cultures with a universal language in the whole world (Uzunkaya, 2009). In the classification of national values, folk dances were followed by tradition, anthem, homeland and cultural values, respectively. The classification of national values made by the teacher candidates has similarities with the classifications in the literature (Kaplan, 1987; İnal, 1998; Demircioğlu and Tokdemir, 2008: 72; Parlakyıldız, 1999; Ercan, 2001; Kolaç and Karadağ, 2012). The least mentioned value within national values was being scientific while the same value was suggested as a universal value by most of the teacher candidates. Since being scientific was one of the least emphasized values in Şen's study (2007) in which national values were identified in the 100 fundamental literary works, it can be argued that it overlaps with the result of this study. In addition, the value of being scientific contains elements such as critical, active, independent, unbiased, creative thinking, questioning, producing solutions, clearly expressing a problem or a claim, researching reasons and proofs, making deductions and adapting them to similar situations (Mindivanlı, Küçük and Aktaş, 2012). As can be inferred from this definition, being scientific is an important universal value that includes elements which every individual should have with respect to the aims of educational programs. However, Yeşilyurt and Kurt (2012) revealed that the official program was effective at a low level in teaching students the value of acting scientific which was considered in the dimension of personal and universal values. In the universal values ranking, the value of being scientific was followed by peace, respect, being fair and caring about being healthy. Besides, the least mentioned values in the raking of universal values were folk dances and tradition. The teacher candidates' classification of universal values is also consistent with the literature (Parlakyıldız, 1999; Demircioğlu and Tokdemir, 2008: 72; Ercan, 2001, Güzel, 2013: 52). In this regard, it can be argued that considering the classifications of national and universal values, there was a consistency between the teacher candidates' views. This consistency is confirmed by the finding that being scientific was the most frequently mentioned as a universal value and the least mentioned one as a national value while folk dances were the most mentioned value among national values and the least mentioned value among the universal values. Besides, most of the teacher candidates described the value of being fair as both national and universal. As a result of the analyses regarding the relationship between the teacher candidates' value classification and gender, university and region, it was found that there was a relationship between the values of "independence, festival, freedom, caring about being healthy, art and historical artefacts" and gender. This result contradicts with Koç's study (2007) in which no significant differences were revealed between students' gender and their attitudes towards universal values. The reason for this difference could be that the participants' of this study were university students, but those in Koç's study (2007) were middle school students. On the other hand, there were significant differences between gender and some values in the studies conducted by Keskin, Öksüz, Gelen and Yılmaz (2012) and Gömleksiz and Cüro (2011). These studies support the findings of this study. Significant relationships also found between the elementary teacher candidates' university and the values of "culture, anthem and historical artefacts". However, no significant differences were revealed between the regions where the teacher candidates came from and their value classification. It can be argued that no significant differences being found between the level of liking the social environment being lived in and students' attitudes towards universal values in Koç's study (2007) support this result. While the elementary teacher candidates described the difference of national values from universal values as being unique to a nation and varying from one nation to another, they explained the difference of universal values from national values as addressing to the whole world and being accepted by everyone. In this regard, the differences that the participants indicated for national and universal values overlap with the definitions in the literature (İnal, 1998; Parlakyıldız, 1999; Ercan, 2001; Somuncu, 2008) In addition, in Prenceipe's study (2001), children explained an aspect of learning national values with whether being accepted by the society or not. This result revealed by the aforementioned study can be argued to be in parallel with the results of this study regarding being unique to a society. As a result of the current study, it can be argued that the elementary teacher candidates had knowledge of the differences between national and universal values. It was observed that the teacher candidates met in common ground while both classifying national and universal values and explaining the differences in-between. This result may show that teacher candidates who will teach future generations and equip them with necessary values have the core knowledge in terms of value classification. | en_US |
