Social Studies Teachers’ Perspective of Religion Education in Turkey

Article History: Received 03.08.2014 Received in revised form 28.09.2014 Accepted 17.10.2014 Available online 01.03.2015 The dispute over religion education within the education system in Turkey is about a process of compulsory and elective religion classes although it emerged upon exclusion from school curricula. The increasing democratization of society in Turkey led to the critique of society’s own religious values and some reorganization. Social change brings along particular perspectives and innovations. Religion education, with the purpose of positively influencing man’s life and making people happy as long as they live, by establishing a life style based on the individual’s powers of belief, contributes in co-existence of various religious values in the society and in prevention of religious class differences to occur. The current research aims to define and evaluate social studies teachers’ views of religion education in middle schools. For this purpose, data from social studies teachers employed in various middle schools in Aydin, Nevsehir, Elazig, Bingol, Mardin, Diyarbakir, and Siirt were obtained through a semi-structured interview, a qualitative research method. The obtained data were analyzed with a qualitative data analysis technique. Research results showed that social studies teachers’ views on religion education varied and this variation stemmed from different factors involved in different processes within religion education. © 2016 IOJES. All rights reserved