International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 2016, 8 (4), 108-118 © 2016 International Online Journal of Educational Sciences (IOJES) is a publication of Educational Researches and Publications Association (ERPA) www.iojes.net International Online Journal of Educational Sciences ISSN: 1309-2707 Action Research on Using Drama in Human Rights Education Gül Tuncel 1 , Mustafa İçen 2 1 Marmara University, Ataturk Faculty of Education, Istanbul, Turkey, 2 Yıldız Technical University, Faculty of Education, Istanbul Turkey ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History: Received 21.03.2016 Received in revised form 16.11.2016 Accepted 17.11.2016 Available online 20.11.2016 Human rights and democracy education is a form of education which includes furnishing individuals with social behaviors, and learning through experience should be considered as the grounds in order for it to make permanent changes and allow students to internalize human rights and democracy manners. Thus, the problem statement of the research question is as followsDz ȃWhat are pre-service teachers’ perceptions, opinions and interpretations on the effectiveness of using drama about human rights and democracy education in training Social Sciences pre-service teachers?Ȅ The study group of the action research consists of Ŝş junior students who were studying in the Department of Social Sciences Teaching during 2012-2013 academic year and who were taking Human Rights and Democracy course. Data for the study were gathered through open-ended question forms, semi-structured interviews and video recordings taken during drama activities. The data were analyzed by using content analysis and descriptive analysis methods. It was observed that human rights and democracy education could turn into social behaviors and the setting required for enabling awareness could be provided through drama activities. © 2016 IOJES. All rights reserved Keywords: 1 Human rights, human rights education, democracy education Introduction Human rights education is promoted from primary school to higher education through being integrated in various courses and also through self-contained courses with its unique name. In both methods, courses fail to go beyond the understanding of theoretical transference. However, both theory without practice and practice without theory are far distant from attaining the objectives. With this respect, in this study, the theoretical basis of human rights is presented before resorting to the drama method which contributes to learning through experience within the field of application. Human rights is both an active and also a passive principle when each human right is considered individually. In other words, it refers to the actions that people themselves need to display and actions they expect from others to display towards them. On the other hand, these principles stand as attempts to propose ethical demands for social order, legal and political matters. What is demanded with these principles is to continuously provide the general conditions required for people to realize their potentials (Kucuradi, 2008). Human rights structures and guarantees the protection of the social conditions that individuals need in order to effectively and spiritually realize themselves. Thus, without human rights individuals cannot be expected to humanistically realize themselves, display required actions and become a part of the society. Human rights, which constitute the keystones of human identity, are the core elements of human existence and human dignity (Duben, 1994). Yet, human dignity underlines the human position among other beings. This value is due to some features that consist of its structural potentials and deems every individual worthy 2 Corresponding author’s address: Yıldız Technical University, Faculty of Education, Istanbul Turkey Telephone: +902123835587 Fax:+902123834808 e-mail:micen@yildiz.edu.tr DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15345/iojes.2016.04.010