Perception of multigrade classes schools: sociology of personalized learning

Abstract

There are many schools of multigrade classes in many cities in Turkey due to the fact that there are various reasons, from a lack of financial budget to a harsh geographic demographic condition. Nevertheless, what should not be forgotten that this schooling is neither good nor bad, or is it neutral. Rather what the important is how they are utilized and how they came to be in the present practices in order to provide particular suggestions to authorities. To achieve the desired educational outcome of effectiveness and efficiency in these schools, the teachers' perception of these schooling is one of the crucial influencers. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how candidates of classroom teachers perceive the educational practices, in particular after visiting several of multigrade classes' schools through a participatory research approach. This study actually introduces the notions of education and sociology; particularly personalized learning in which the aim of progressive education approach ought to devalue political relativism and educational centralization and to revalue educational subjectivism and humanitarian utilitarianism. Particularly, this study aims to clarify the issue of responsibility and accountability in this schooling, and why and how this personalization of progressive education would be approached by whom.