Investigating Turkish Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Environmental Moral Reasoning Patterns on Environmental Dilemmas

Abstract

This chapter explored preservice primary teachers' moral reasoning patterns on local and non-local environmental dilemmas. Forty-seven preservice primary teachers enrolling in an environmental education course voluntarily participated in the study. The data were collected via preservice teachers' written reports about local and non-local environmental dilemmas and analyzed by means of qualitative and quantitative methods. The results revealed that preservice teachers mostly focused on ecocentric and anthropocentric moral reasoning on sea pollution case while using ecocentric and non-environmental reasoning in the deforestation case. The t-test results also revealed that preservice teachers used more anthropocentric reasoning patterns in the sea pollution case when compared to the deforestation case. The inclusion of local and non-local dilemmas into the environmental education courses in undergraduate teacher education programs can facilitate preservice teachers' moral reasoning.