The concept of peace and peace education has gained popularity recently because of the endless wars within and between the countries. As it is known, teachers have a great influence on students, and they can affect the learning of the concept of 'peace'. In the teaching-learning process, teachers help students to acquire the values and beliefs adopted by themselves or the society. On peace education, teachers can help students both learn to understand the consequences of the human behavior of violence and how to deal with them, and to understand how the peace environment can be brought about (Harris and Morrison, 2003). It is believed that the perceptions, thoughts, and attitudes of teachers about war and peace can directly affect the perceptions, thoughts and attitudes of their students. Therefore, teachers attitudes towards war and peace gain particular importance. In Religious Culture and Ethics Courses (RCEC) , internalization of values like justice, family establishment and unity, democracy, consciousness, honesty, forgiveness, solidarity, sacrifice, reliability, tolerance, goodwill, brotherhood, compassion, courtesy which have great importance in ensuring individual and social peace are aimed (MONE, 2010a; MONE, 2010b). In addition, RCEC is one of the most important courses in teaching the concept of peace in the context of values education, and it is seen as one of the most important courses that have a leading role in the construction of peace culture (Aydın, 2005). For these reasons, RCEC teachers were chosen as the study group in the research, and the purpose of the study was determined as investigation of Religious Culture and Ethics Course teachers’ attitudes on war and peace.
The study is structured by conducting descriptive model and mixed method in which qualitative and quantitative methods used together is employed. As research design, triangulation design which allows the qualitative and quantitative data to be collected at the same time is used. ‘The Scale of War and Peace’ developed by Aktaş (2012) is applied to 89 Religious Culture and Ethics Course teachers to collect quantitative data in research. For collection of qualitative data, interviews through semi-structured forms are conducted to 8 Religious Culture and Ethics Course teachers. Frequency analysis (f), percentage (%), and mean (X) values of scale items are used in the analysis of quantitative data while the method of discourse analysis is utilized in the analysis of qualitative data.
According to the findings of the study, teachers think that belligerence is an emotion that exists from birth and can be shaped. Teachers have participated moderately to the proposal that war can be justified, and in interviews, they have stated that wars can be justified in defensive position. Also, it is seen that the items that teachers participate at the highest level are the items in the ‘defense’ sub-dimension. In the interviews, they stated that religions do not approve wars; however, some differences in religious perception and interpretation cause religion to associate with war. One of the important findings of the study is that teachers believe in very high level that wars are volition of God. This belief can be related to teachers' fatalism.
The findings of ‘wars results’ sub-dimension show that teachers seem to agree that wars have negative consequences. For example, they think that the battles are harmful and lost time for both winner and loser and wars cause innocent people to suffer. Moreover, teachers see wars as chaos, tears, blood, crying mothers and orphaned children. It is found that teachers attach great importance to the concepts of patriotism and heroism, but they are disturbed by the glorification of belligerence and war under these concepts. Teachers associate the concept of peace with the concepts such as tolerance, respect, sharing, agreement, reconciliation, nonviolence, communication and happiness, and they stated that RCEC lessons and teachers are capable of contributing to peace. Teachers have shown a high level of involvement in the proposal that the army should help war zones to contribute to peace and war-seeking countries and leaders should be punished. They also think that people have strong values to resolve the problem of war. Teachers support the idea that peace environment should be preserved until the wars are inevitable. However, they are undecided about the statement that all the wars are bad. The reason for this indecision may be that teachers have justified some wars because of their belief in the justification of the defensive wars.
In the research, teachers support the idea that as the society becomes civilized, the wars will be replaced by peace and the peace environment is regarded as good in all situations. In other words, teachers see civilization as a prerequisite for peace and believe that peace is good in any way. Teachers believe that peacemakers and these kinds of institutions in the world will prevent wars in the future. However, they are undecided about the belief that people will live in a peaceful world in the future. This shows that teachers are not desperate about ensuring peace in sometimes, but that they have some doubts about completely peaceful world in the future. Teachers are involved at a very high level as the reduction of income gap between the rich and poor countries will contribute to peace in the world. In this case, it is possible to say that teachers think that income gap causes wars. At the same time, teachers consider that listening to the call of religions will contribute to world peace. The belief that religions have ordered peace in essence (Ateş, 2006) is one of the reasons why teachers think in this way. However, despite the emphasis on the concept of peace in the core of religions, it is seen that there are deep divisions due to religion. Religious conflicts can occur not only among the members of different religions but also among the same religious’ members (Onat, 2002). This situation is also stated by the teachers during the interviews. Teachers mention that religious education is of great importance in the solution of religious and sectarian conflicts. In this case, it is possible to say that teachers' adoption of the emphasis of peace on the basis of religions to their students may be useful in eliminating conflicts.
Ülkeler içi ve ülkeler arasında meydana gelen bitmeyen savaşlar, günümüzde barış kavramı ve barış eğitiminin gündeme gelmesi ve popülerlik kazanmasına sebep olmuştur. Barış ortamının sağlanması ve barış eğitimiyle ilgili somut adımların atılmasında toplumun her bireyinin olduğu gibi öğretmenlerin de büyük bir etkisi bulunmaktadır. Öğretmen, öğrencilerinde davranış değişikliği oluştururken kendisinin benimsemiş olduğu veya toplum tarafından benimsenen değer ve inançları edinmesine de yardımcı olmaktadır. Öğretmenlerin savaş ve barışla ilgili algı, düşünce ve tutumlarının, öğrencilerinin algı, düşünce ve tutumlarını etkileyebileceği düşünülmektedir. Bu nedenle savaş ve barışa ilişkin öğretmen tutumları ayrı bir önem kazanmaktadır. Değerler eğitimi bağlamında barış kavramının öğretiminin yapıldığı ve ilgili kavramla ilgili kazanımları içeren en önemli derslerden biridir ve çatışma kültürü yerine barış kültürünün yapılandırılmasında öncü role sahip olan derslerden biri olarak görülmektedir. Bu nedenlerden dolayı, araştırmanın amacı, Din Kültürü ve Ahlak Bilgisi (DKAB) dersi öğretmenlerinin savaş ve barışa ilişkin tutumlarını tespit etmektir. Tarama modeliyle yapılandırılan çalışmada, karma yöntem ve zenginleştirilmiş desen kullanılmıştır. Araştırmada nicel verilerin sağlanmasında 89 DKAB öğretmenine; Aktaş (2012) tarafından geliştirilen ‘Savaş ve Barış Tutum Ölçeği’ uygulanmış, nitel veriler ise 8 DKAB öğretmeniyle yapılan görüşmelerle toplanmıştır. Araştırma sonunda, öğretmenlerin uluslararası sorunların çözümünde en iyi yolun savaş olduğu, savaşlarda kazanılan başarıların bütün başarılardan üstün olduğu gibi önermelere katılmadıkları; aksine savaşı kazananın da kaybedenin de zarar gördüğü, savaşın suçsuz insanlara acı verdiği, barışın taraftarı olunması gerektiği, insanların dinlerinin çağrısına uymasının barışa katkı sağlayacağı görüşlerini benimsedikleri görülmektedir. Öğretmenler genellikle yalnızca savunma savaşlarının haklı olabileceğini ve desteklenmesi gerektiğini düşünmekte ve DKAB dersi ve öğretmenlerinin barışa katkı sağlanmasında önemli bir yerinin olduğunu düşünmektedirler.
Primary Language | Turkish |
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Journal Section | Articles |
Authors | |
Publication Date | October 31, 2019 |
Submission Date | April 14, 2019 |
Acceptance Date | August 10, 2019 |
Published in Issue | Year 2019 Volume: 2019 Issue: 38 |