VIEWPOINTS AND PERCEPTIONS OF PARENTS ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF 'GOOD CITIZEN', CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION IN FAMILY AND AT SCHOOL
Raising a ‘good citizen’ is one of the most important purposes of states. Hence, schools are the most important institutions in citizenship education. Since citizenship education covers in-class and out-class activities, teachers have a crucial role in the success of education process. Citizenship education starts in families, so parents are also responsible for citizenship education. Since previous studies which were done other scholars mostly focused on opinions of teachers and students rather than parents, this study aimed to contribute parents’ opinion to the field. In this study, phenomenological research design was utilized, and also the data collected by semi-structured interview form. The working group consisted of the 16 parents of middle school students who are studying in provinces of Istanbul and Adiyaman in Turkey. These shown that student’s parents want to raise good citizens for both country and community. They also have emphasized that a ‘good citizen’ has good behaviors such as protecting public properties, obeying rules and laws, making good relationships with their families and other people, serving in the army, paying taxes and helping others. According to the parents, both teachers and parents have common responsibilities in raising of the children as good citizens. Based on these conclusions, it can be concluded that teachers and parents need to do more work together in the process of raising ‘good citizen’.

Keywords
Good citizen, Citizenship education, middle school, parents, teacher.