Examining Social Studies Teacher Candidates Attitudes Towards Zero Waste Policy According to Various Variables

The interaction between humans and the environment is critical for sustainable living. Increasing consumption habits and environmental pollution have brought zero-waste policies to the forefront. The zero-waste approach is defined as a systemic framework that protects human health and the environment through responsible disposal practices and the conservation of all resources, ensuring the recycling and recovery of waste materials, including goods, materials, and packaging generated during production and consumption (Rathoure, 2020). This study aims to examine the attitudes of social studies pre-service teachers towards zero-waste policy in terms of gender, enrollment status in environmental education (or similar courses), and year of study. The study utilized a quantitative survey model. The Zero Waste Attitude Scale (Özcan & Meydan, 2024) was administered to 488 social studies pre-service teachers from 28 universities. As the data did not follow a normal distribution, non-parametric methods, specifically the Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests, were used for analysis Findings indicated that pre-service teachers generally possess highly positive attitudes towards zero-waste policy.While the highest attitude scores related to the unconscious consumption of natural resources, the tendency to purchase recycled products if they are expensive was low, and participation in zero-waste activities was limited. Test results revealed that female pre-service teachers had significantly higher attitudes than their male counterparts. Similarly, pre-service teachers who had taken an environmental education course demonstrated significantly higher attitude levels than those who had not. However, attitudes did not differ significantly by grade level.Based on these results, it is recommended that a compulsory, practical-based environmental education course be added to the curriculum and that zero-waste projects be more widely implemented in universities.