Organ Donation According to the Students and their Families in Example of the Social Studies Course

The topic of organ donation has recently been covered in the curricula of different courses such as Social Studies, Science and Technology in Turkey. Organ donation is of great importance for the Social Studies course in terms of its societal, biological, cultural, judicial and religious aspects. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the views of students and their parents regarding organ donation after studying the subject in Social Studies course. The qualitative research method was employed in this study. The semi-structured interviews with 10 students and 10 parents were conducted in 2014-2015 spring term and the results were examined through content analysis. The results revealed that the students and parents value the organ donation mostly because it saves life, provides a basis for helping each other, and creates joy of life. It was found that the parents’ knowledge about organ donation is limited. They believe that the religious and cultural structure hinder people from organ donation and the views of people who have experience with organ donation may change and they become more sensitive to the issue; however; they are not so interested in organ donation. The study also found that parents are not necessarily aware of what their students know about organ donation and they do not interact with their children about this subject. In light of the study results, some recommendations are presented to raise awareness in students and their parents regarding organ donation.