Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out Social Studies teachers’ perception of pre service Social Studies teachers using metaphors. The study group in this research includes 83 pre service teachers at the department of Social Studies, the faculty of education in a state university in Turkey. The research was conducted during 2014–2015 academic year. Related opinions of the pre service teachers participating in the study were collected through an open ended interview form. In this form the pre service teachers were asked to fill in the blanks as follows: “A Social Studies teacher is like ….. As …..” Opinions of the pre service teachers regarding the concept of Social Studies teacher were analyzed by content analysis technique. At the end of the study, 60 metaphors were collected from the pre service teachers and nine categories were set using these metaphors: Teacher as Illuminator/Source of Knowledge, Teacher as Protector/Administrator, Teacher as Guide/Instructor, Teacher as Source of Life, Teacher as Master, Teacher as Source of Merits, Hardworking Teacher, Teacher as Shaper and Teacher as Source of Diversity.

Key words: Social studies, Social Studies teacher, teacher candidate, metaphor.