"Primary School Curriculum is like a Matryoshka": Teacher Candidates' Perceptions of the Curriculum

The curriculum is an important guide for a country's education system. It covers the objectives, teaching and learning process, content, and evaluation process. The primary school curriculum was updated in Turkey in 2018 and made simpler compared to the 2006 curriculum. The purpose of this research was to explore the perceptions of primary school teacher candidates about the primary school curriculum through conceptual metaphor theory. For this purpose, teacher candidates completed the prompt "Primary school curriculum is like/similar to ........ Because ………” The data in this qualitative research was analyzed using content analysis techniques. The characteristics of the curriculum guided the analysis process. According to the findings, eight themes were identified: Primary school curriculum as being systematic, being the foundation of education, being a guide, being individual foundations, being purpose-oriented, being applicable, being the foundation of life, and others. The findings indicate that the pre-service teachers mostly produced positive metaphors for the primary school curriculum. According to the results of the research, it was determined that the pre-service teachers emphasized the basic features of the program and their level of knowledge was high. It is expected that the research will contribute to primary school teacher education.