Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to reveal geography teachers' perception on the concept of "Geography", by means of the metaphors they use. The study was participated by 116 geography teachers working in several high-schools in Istanbul City center within the 2012-2013 academic year. Answers to the following questions were sought in the study: (1) Which metaphors are use to explain geography teachers' perceptions of the concept “Geography”? (2) Under what categories are these metaphors gathered according to their common traits? The data of the study were obtained by having the participating geography teachers fill in the sentence "Geography is like ..., because ...". Phenomenological design was used in the study and the obtained data were analyzed with content analysis. Within the scope of the study, the participating geography teachers set forth 64 valid metaphors concerning the concept, "Geography", which were examined in terms of their common traits and gathered under 5 different conceptual categories according to these traits. While 26% of the participating geography teachers perceived geography as the expression of "life", 25% perceived it as the expression of "knowledge", 18% perceived it as the expression of "guidance", 17% perceived it as the expression of "importance" and 14% perceived it as the expression of "diversity".

Key words: Metaphor, geography, geography teacher.