Metaphor Perceptions of Social Studies Teachers Regarding the Conceptions of Freedom and Justice

Using metaphors in education is a very effective method, especially in terms of learning abstract concepts and being memorable. For this reason, teachers use frequently metaphors in order to understand the concepts in their lessons. This study aims to determine teachers' perceptions of freedom and justice concepts through the metaphors they produce for these concepts, which are abstract concepts and are important for social studies course. Phenomenology was used in data collection and interpretation to reveal the thoughts and interpretations of what was said. The working group of the research is 43 social studies teachers, 21 of whom are female and 22 of whom are male, working in Turkey's different provinces and schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education of Turkey. The study group was determined by purposeful sampling method. An interview form developed by the researchers was used to collect the data. The collected data were analyzed by content analysis method. The teachers who participated in the study produced many metaphors with very different qualities for the concepts of freedom and justice. A total of 33 metaphors have been produced for the concept of freedom, and in these metaphors, freedom is mostly compared to being or concepts such as bird, flying and sun. At the same time, different metaphors such as swing, drinking coffee, screaming were also produced. In a total of 28 metaphors produced for the concept of justice, justice is mostly compared to the sun, balance and mother respectively. On the other hand, different metaphors such as coin, flower, worker were also produced by the participants for justice. The metaphors produced for both freedom and justice are included in different conceptual categories. Some of the metaphors was produced are quite suitable and functional to explain and teach the concepts of freedom and justice, but it is noteworthy that some of them do not have these qualities. New studies may be conducted to determine the reasons for producing inappropriate or invalid metaphors. In addition, educational activities can be carried out in schools and out of school areas to understand and adopt the concepts of freedom and justice correctly. [For the full proceedings, see ED630893.]