Author(s): Fazilet Özge SEVİM, Ramazan DİLER
The purpose of the study is to reveal and evaluate opinions and suggestions of Religious Culture and Ethics Course teachers about the place of peace education in their lessons. The data of the study are obtained by interviews with eight Religious Culture and Ethics Course teachers. The semi-structured interview form prepared by the researchers is conducted to collect data. Discourse analysis method, one of the qualitative data analysis methods, is used for the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it is determined that the teachers see Religious Culture and Ethics Course as one of the most suitable courses for peace education. However, according to the teachers, the theme of peace is not emphasized enough in their lessons. The reasons for this situation are mainly shown as the differences in perceptions about religious education, conflicts caused by disagreements in religious thoughts and in some situations overlooking universal values by emphasizing only Muslim fraternity in Religious Culture and Ethics Course. The teachers mention the effects of family, school-family cooperation, friend environment and technology to ensure peace education. As well as, they point out that their behaviors and attitudes have a great influence on students. In addition, teachers who talk about the problem of the applicability of the program objectives of the Religious Culture and Ethics Course think that in-service training that will be given under the theme of peace education may be useful for them. From these findings, it can be suggested that the subjects and themes included in RCEC lessons are reviewed in provision of peace education and teachers should be more sensitive about these subjects and themes. Increasing school-family cooperation, disseminating the use of technology for educational purposes, parents and teachers’ role-model attitudes and behaviors and raising awareness of teachers and families through in-service training and family education programs about peace education can also be suggested
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