An Investigation of Turkish 2013 Early-Childhood Curriculum Regarding Values Education: Teacher Views and Practices

The study aims to present teachers’ views on 2013 Turkish early-childhood curriculum in values education context. It was conducted in qualitative method with 90 preschool teachers. The participants categorized the values in four groups in terms of their existence in the curriculum and their teaching. Of the values exiting in the curriculum, the participants reported that they did not have any difficulty in teaching being voluntary to take responsibilities, physical hygiene, kindness, asking for help, love and learning to obey the rules whereas they had problems in teaching communication, compromising, defending their own rights and of others, empathy and stick to their responsibilities. Environmental cleaning, politeness in communication, sharing, accepting mistakes, apologising, concentrating on duties, accepting apologies, offering help, job-sharing, acting as group members, caring entrusted materials, being sincere, thriftiness, being considerate, love for the country and flag and learning unity and solidarity were counted among the values not existing in the curriculum but the participants had negligible problems in their teaching. The last set of values, which do not exist in the curriculum, but the participant regarded necessary to teach were reported as learning to compete without harming, appreciating beauties, controlling emotions, being peaceful, complimenting and learning sexual privacy