Experiences of Pre-service Teachers about Educating Disadvantaged Students: Challenges and Opportunities

In recent years, the student profile in our schools has changed and students from different backgrounds are studying in the same classrooms with other students. Teachers’ efforts to improve their academic success and integrate them for social cohesion may be inadequate. For this reason, it can be necessary to provide these students an after-school program. The Community Service Learning (CSL) is a compulsory course in all departments of the faculty of education at the university. The teacher candidates taking CSL course prepared a project to support academic and social developments of disadvantaged students. 10 Science and 8 Social Studies Education teacher candidates took part in and completed the project in different primary and middle schools located in the city. The disadvantaged students were selected by their classroom, subject teachers, and school administrators. The following research question guided this study: What are the lived experiences of pre-service teachers about educating disadvantaged students? To collect the data for this phenomenological study, we used a form including16 open-ended questions that allowed participants to describe the process of the project, their challenges, and the project’s contribution to their journey towards becoming a teacher. Each prospective teacher prepared a final report based on the questions and they formed the data of this study. Observations in regular meetings and researcher journal were the additional data sources for the analysis. According to the analysis, the participants experienced challenges, had psychological and occupational gains