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The purpose of this study was to investigate Turkish pre-service teachers’ beliefs about social studies in order to expand upon a debate that has been ongoing for the last few decades. While there always have been various definition since the inception of the field, to date, no single, official definition has been agreed upon among social studies educators. The study indicated that there are a wide variety of beliefs regarding social studies exist among Turkish pre-service teachers. The vast majority of the participants characterized social studies is an integrated field of study, although what they included as tenets of this field varied widely. The majority of the participants cited either “preparing informed citizens” or “improving communication skills” as the sole purpose of social studies.

The main purpose of this investigation is to find out the influence of empathic skills of managers on the success of schools.

In this study, survey based descriptive scanning model was used. This study was fulfilled in Batman city on teachers working at public and private primary schools in 2003‐2004 education year. According to the results of the central evaluation examination, schools were divided into three success groups (each group having seven schools). About 10 teachers were randomly selected from each of these schools, and then the 23 itemed questionnaire was administered.

As a result of the research it was seen that empathic skills of managers and school success had a very close relationship. There were meaningful differences between the first group and the other two groups. Successful schools' managers clearly had better empathic skills and unsuccessful schools' managers had little empathic skills. The same situation was seen between the second group and the third group as well.

The results of this research may be affected by local conditions in which it was conducted.

The empathic skills which are revealed as important indicators of success should be taken into consideration during the selection and training of managers.

This paper discusses the empathic aspect of school management which has been rarely taken up and displays the importance of empathic skills on school success.