War and Peace Literacy of Social Studies Teacher Candidates: A Metaphorical Research

Abstract

The aim of this study is to reveal the literacy levels and metaphors of Social Studies teacher candidates regarding the concepts of war and peace taught in secondary school. The research may be important in terms of revealing how Social Studies teacher candidates interpret the concepts of war and peace and how they perceive these concepts metaphorically. Phenomenology, one of the qualitative research designs, was used in the research. The study group of the research consists of 60 teacher candidates studying in the 4th year of the Social Studies Teaching undergraduate program of two state universities. In the research, it was determined what meanings Social Studies teacher candidates attributed to the concepts of war and peace. The collected metaphors were classified according to the metaphors used by teacher candidates. In addition, the resulting metaphors were grouped around certain common themes. Accordingly, the prospective teachers who participated in the research created 33 metaphors regarding the concept of war and 30 metaphors regarding the concept of peace. According to the research results, the most frequently repeated war metaphor is “massacre”, followed by metaphors such as “murder”, “apocalypse”, “grim reaper” and “virus”. The most frequently repeated peace metaphor is “breathing”, followed by Metaphors such as “peace”, “friendship”, “mother” and “obligation” were followed. Metaphors related to the concepts of war and peace were grouped under two categories: “positive” and “negative”. While metaphors about war were concentrated in the “negative” category, metaphors about peace were observed to be concentrated in the “positive” category. When the participants’ reasons for the decision to go to war were examined, the most recurring answers were “if the future and security of the country is in danger” and “to guarantee peace”. It has been determined that Social Studies teacher candidates who are new to the profession view war as a negative concept and peace as a positive concept. On the other hand, the fact that they create simple and easy justifications for deciding on war can be interpreted as their failure to internalize peace sufficiently.