Investigating Prospective Social Studies Teachers’ Perceptions of European Union through Metaphor Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate metaphors developed by social studies teacher candidates about the European Union. 185 second, third and fourth year social studies teacher candidates participated in the study. This study was designed as a phenomenological study and matephor analysis was conducted. At the end of the study, the students developed 168 metaphors about the European Union. The metaphors developed by the students were grouped into 4 categories after coding and extracting phases. The categories were (1) a religious community, (2) a seemingly powerful but decadent formation, (3) a powerful formation and (4) does anything for its own interest. It was determined in the study that the students perceived the EU mostly as a powerful formation (36.14%), followed by a religious community (34.33%), does anything for its own interest (20.48%) and a seemingly powerful but decadent formation (8.43%).