Woman, Man, Society and Sex: How Pre-Service Teachers Perceive Basic Gender Concepts?

The aim of the study is to reveal Turkish pre-service teachers' gender perceptions. For this, cognitive structures of pre-service teachers were analysed with minds maps created with the word association test (WAT) and their mental models were analysed by drawing. In this context, a holistic single case study was adopted depending on the purpose of the research and the data collection process. According to the findings obtained from the WAT, it was determined that the cognitive structures of pre-service teachers were built on the" sex," "society" and "woman," and the "man" was in a weakly related in the cognitive structure. On drawing analysis, it was seen that most of the pre-service teachers depicted "man" and "woman" with visuals reflecting traditional stereotypes. On the other hand, visuals reflecting an egalitarian and contemporary perspective. In the light of both analysis results, Turkish teacher education curricula were discussed and specific suggestions were presented.