Abstract
The aim of this study is to determine the multicultural education perceptions of teachers working in secondary and high schools. Participants of this research designed with phenomenological approach, which is one of the qualitative research methods are 12 teachers working in secondary and high schools. Data was collected through the interview method in which a semi-structured interview form was used. Content analyzes were performed on the collected data and congruity ratios were calculated (0.83) between coders for the encodings performed separately by the researchers. Results indicate that the teachers most frequently define multicultural education as "training which is appropriate to different cultural values". When the definitions of multicultural education were examined, it was deduced that teachers focused on race, ethnicity, language, religion or social class dimensions of multiculturalism whereas, they did not think age, gender, disability, sexual orientation dimensions as the scope of the of multiculturalism. The teachers also expressed that they implemented multicultural education by "creating a culturally sensitive classroom environment" and "culturally sensitive teaching". The teachers stated that the primary advantage of multicultural education practices was the students' development of cultural sensitivity while the most important obstacle they faced in multicultural education practices was "undesirable student behaviors". At the end, it was concluded that teachers need to get a comprehensive education on multicultural education.
Highlights
Scientific, technological and economic developments in today's society have made communication and transportation easier and faster, international boundaries have begun to lose its importance
As a result of increasing representation and recognition expectations of different cultural elements, policies of multiculturalism have been coming to the fore
The interview form was developed by referring the data collection tool of Bigatti et al (2012) and the opinions of two faculty members who are expert in qualitative research
Summary
Scientific, technological and economic developments in today's society have made communication and transportation easier and faster, international boundaries have begun to lose its importance. Relationships could be set up with people within certain distance, at the present time, by overcoming the concept of time and space, social, economic and cultural relations have been established even in places with intercontinental communities (Mahiroğulları, 2005) In this process, developments increasingly moving away from homogeneous nation-state models have been occurring (Habermas, 2002; Şan 2005). According to Brown and Kysilka (2002), teachers are the most important elements in learning and teaching as they implement curriculum in the classroom and collaborate with students They are required to accept biological, sexual, racial, religious, cultural, economic, and political differences of students, take these into account when arranging teaching environments, consider differences not as a problem but as richness to provide better learning and teaching environment (Başbay & Bektaş, 2009; Başbay & Kağnıcı, 2011; Cırık, 2008; Çoban, et al, 2010; Polat 2009). What are the disadvantages of multicultural education as perceived by teachers?
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