Abstract

Despite the widespread of democracy, the term has no unified meaning; and thus a lack of clarity which renders communication ineffective. Democracy is a political term which allows individuals the freedom of choice when electing government officials. It gives individuals the most involvement in government oversight, elections and changes, as opposed to other forms of governance.  However, this study focuses on the freedom of choice within a classroom setting. A recent definition of democracy enables individuals to have more freedom and ability in society along with their identities. Thus it ultimately leads to a more peaceful and prolific lives as individuals are integrated with their society. During this study, the survey model was used to determine the democratic values of the prospective teachers in the fourth year students from faculty of different departments in a Turkish state university. The study carried out with survey models aims to describe the specifications of the mass and the present situation. The research group is a total 402 prospective teachers studying in the Department of Preschool Teaching (n = 41), Guidance and Counseling (n = 41), Social Studies Teaching (n = 75), Science Teaching (n = 60), Primary School Teaching (n = 108), Turkish Teaching (n = 77) in the faculty of education. As an instrument, ‘Democratic Values Scale’ by Selvi is used to collect the data. The likert-type scale consists of 24 items, including three sub-dimensions with its factor load values ranging from .41 to .72. The sum variance explained by sub-dimensions is 44.81 %. These have shown that the validity of this scale is high. From the findings, we could say this study is so important to demonstrate in different way and approach that there is a democratically well-equipped and planned doctrine and philosophy of education in Turkey. In turn, this reflects on teachers, class, and practically prospective students. In conclusion, the study found that there is in place a democratically well-equipped and planned doctrine and philosophy of education in Turkey. This was found at the student and teacher level, as well as within the prospective student population.

Key words: Teacher education, value, and democratic value.