Examining Teacher Candidates' Perceptions of Multiculturalism Based on Different Variables

Multiculturalism includes becoming aware of races, ethnic structures, languages, sexual orientations, gender, age, being disabled, social classes, education, religious orientations and other cultural dimensions. Teachers who play a significant role in the educational process should also be trained to have the necessary competence in multiculturalism. The aim of the study was to investigate first- and third-year teacher candidates' perceptions of multiculturalism in terms of different variables. Since it was aimed to understand an existing case, survey model, which is often preferred in descriptive studies, was employed. The study was conducted with 316 first- and third-year students at Dokuz Eylul University. Among them, 149 were from the department of Turkish language education, and 167 from the department of elementary education. "Multiculturalism Perception Scale" developed by Ayaz (2016) was used to gather data. The results of the study showed that the teacher candidates' perceptions of multiculturalism did not significantly differ based on their parents' educational status, the number of they read books annually, their gender, major, region of hometown and year of study. In other words, the teacher candidates' perceptions regarding cultural and individual differences were similar. In this regard, the teacher candidates' adopting a positive attitude towards multiculturalism is of significance in terms of guiding different students as they adapt to a new society