Chapter 3: The Complexity of Teaching Values in Social Studies Teacher Education in Turkey: A Gender Perspective

Today, values education comes into prominence as one of the most important subjects of education. In particular, young people’s harmful behaviors towards themselves and other people in society and moral problems have made values education an important component of the education system. Therefore, school must support values education by developing consistent strategies. Schools should contribute to students’ development of values by using different teaching and learning approaches in a holistic way (Halstead & Taylor, 2000). How the individual gains moral development and values is the starting point in values education. Among the theories explaining moral development, Piaget’s work is important, not only in providing important data on the explanation of moral development, but also in terms of the relationship between moral development and cognitive development. Kohlberg’s (1975) work explaining moral development is remarkable because of the use of moral dilemma situations and of determining the stages of moral development. Moral dilemmas allow individuals to reflect their own values. Moral decisions in dilemmas are aimed not only at escaping punishment, but also at protecting people’s benefits (Kohlberg, 1975).