Examination of Teachers Views on Environment in Terms of Anthropocentric and Ecocentric Environmental Approach

The aim of this research is to examine primary school teachers’ views on the environment in terms of human-centered (anthropocentric) and environment-centered (ecocentric) environmental approaches. The research was carried out with the case study design, which is one of the qualitative research designs. The study group of the research consisted of 27 primary school teachers from various primary schools. A semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers was used as a data collection tool. The content analysis method was used to analyze the data. As a result of the research, it was found that most of the teachers expressed their views about the reasons for the protection of the environment, the most valuable thing in the environment, the reason for the environment's existence, the importance of recycling, the depletion of natural resources, and the preference for economical products based on a human-centered environmental approach. The researchers found that the teachers generally reported their views about the rights of living beings, the consequences of population growth, and the effects of forest destruction based on an environment-centered environmental approach. As a result, it has been suggested that a qualified environmental education that will enable them to adopt an environmentally centered approach should be given to teachers during in-service training and to pre-service teachers during the undergraduate education process.