Summary


THE ETHICAL VALUE OF HUMAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL RELATIONS: THE PLACE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS IN GEOGRAPHY CURRICULUM AND TEXTBOOKS IN TURKEY

The concept of the environment, which can be deconstructed in a multitude of settings, is among the problems that await solutions in many disciplines. The ethical and philosophical dimensions of the interaction between the environment, humans, and nature play a critical role when it comes to making sense and understanding the universe we exist in. The aim of the research is to concentrate on textbooks and the curricula that they are based on, and to examine the role of the ethical perspectives in the relationships that people develop with their environment in official teaching practices. The data in this study, which was designed with a qualitative case study, were obtained by examining documents from the Geography Curriculum (2018) used in the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades of secondary education in Turkey, as well as seven different textbooks prepared in accordance with this program. The content analysis technique was used to analyze the research data. As a result of the research, it was determined that the special objectives of the geography course emphasized concepts of egoism and utilitarianism from the consequentialist ethical theories, and virtue ethics and deontological ethics from the non-consequentialist ethical theories, and it was determined that an ethical understanding linked to the values of "responsibility, self-control, love of nature and patriotism" was developed in the acquisitions of the geography course. The themes of “life in nature, human benefits from the environment, and ethical behavior of humans towards the environment.” appeared in the view of environmental ethics in geography textbooks. The textbooks include the reflections of anthropocentric and ecocentric environmental ethics in displaying an ethical attitude towards the environment, and examples of responsibility-based behavior regarding the awareness of creating a sustainable environment.



Keywords

Environmental ethics, ethics, geography textbooks, anthropocentric, biocentric, ecocentric



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