Teaching Locally, Acting Globally: The Effect of Pre-Service Teachers' Cultural Intelligence Levels on Their Perceptions of Global Citizens

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between cultural intelligence and global citizenship. The study group of the research consisted of 336 pre-service teachers, including pedagogical formation students, selected by a random sampling method from a state university in eastern Turkey, where the immigrant population is dense. Both the "Cultural Intelligence Scale" and "Global Citizenship Scale" were used as data collection tools. In order to statistically determine the levels of cultural intelligence and global citizenship by demographic variables, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were employed by the researcher. Likewise, while the Pearson product-moment correlation analysis was implemented to examine the relationships among the variables, multiple regression analysis was used to determine the predictive coefficients between the variables. Based on the research findings, cultural intelligence was positively correlated with global citizenship. The behavioral dimension of cultural intelligence was the best predictor of global competence. Cultural intelligence levels of pre-service teachers seem to have a significant impact on shaping their process of becoming global citizens. If a person could be able to change his or her body language, spoken language, expressions, and behaviors when encountering any person or people from different ethnic groups and identities, this would mean that s/he is using the behavioral component of cultural intelligence. In this respect, cultural intelligence facilitates being a global citizen and increases adaptation. Therefore, the dimension of cultural intelligence evidently appears to be an essential factor for global citizenship.