The purpose of this study is to investigate history teacher trainees' views and perceptions of the functions of history education. 36 teacher trainees participated in the study. All of the participants were registered to the History Education masters degree (without dissertation), within the Secondary Education Social Sciences discipline at Ataturk Education Faculty, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey in the 2005-2006 academic year. The participants all held a history bachelor's degree from one of a variety of 15 different universities. Qualitative data was gathered via 6 semi-structured and 8 open-ended questions in order to shed light on the teacher trainees' views and perceptions of individual and social functions of teaching history. The study outlines several functions of history education: to help individuals acquire a habit of evaluating historical events within their own contexts, to explore historical artefacts and culture, to create national consciousness and to adopt an objective perspective as well as a humanistic approach.