A review of the development process of tolerance value and critical thinking skills of the students through the interdisciplinary curriculum developed based on multicultural education: A case study

The general purpose of this research is deeply examining the development process of the tolerance value and critical thinking skills of students through the multidisciplinary curriculum developed based on multicultural education. The case study, one of the qualitative research patterns, is used in the research. The study group of the research consists of 30 students in the fourth grade of a primary school and 10 parents in the district of Karakocan in Elazig province in the academic year of 2015-2016. In the research, criteria sampling and maximum diversity sampling methods from the purposeful sampling methods are used. The criteria sampling method is used in determination of the students and maximum diversity sampling method is used in selection of the parents. In the research, we tried to develop tolerance value and critical thinking skills of the students by applying the multidisciplinary curriculum developed based on multicultural education. Within the scope of the research, a personal information form, interview, observation, student logs, researcher log, tolerance attitude scale, story tests, critical thinking skills and tolerance value graded scoring keys are used. The research is conducted between October 5, 2015 and January 8, 2016 in the fall semester of the academic year of 2015-2016. In the research, data are analyzed in two ways as the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Descriptive and content analyzes are used in the analysis of qualitative data and descriptive statistics and t test of dependent samples are used in the analysis of quantitative data. Verifiability, transferability, consistency and confirmability methods have been used to ensure validity and reliability in the research. In result of the research, it has been seen that students rather perceive tolerance as being helpful according to their gender, ethnic identity and beliefs. Tolerance is perceived as accepting a person as is by most of the female parents and as getting along with people by most of the male parents. According to their beliefs, the parents perceive tolerance as being thoughtful. Primary and high school graduate parents perceive tolerance as being thoughtful. A significant difference is found in favor of posttest between the pretest-posttest score averages of the tolerance attitude scale of the study group with the graded scoring key of critical thinking skills and tolerance. When the researcher's log is examined, it is seen that problems are encountered in discipline, classroom environment, parents, teachers, school management, activities and tools while the same is seen in the themes of activities, disciplinary issues, time, values, tools and no problems when student logs are examined; When the video recordings are examined, it is seen that there were problems in classroom, student, activity, discipline problem, values, tools and time inadequacy themes. After the implementation, female students rather perceive tolerance as to be understanding and male students rather perceive tolerance as doing favors. Most of the students stated that they have learned new information through the applied activities and that they have mostly gained the tolerance value in the applied activities and that they have started helping disabled people in their daily lives thanks to the applied activities and that they have enjoyed playing the drama about violence against women and that they had difficulties in doing group work, that they would respect and be tolerant to the individuals with different cultural characteristics and help disabled people around them in their daily lives after the applied activities and that they could use what they have learned after the practiced activities in their social studies lessons. Majority of the parents stated that the applied activities increase the awareness of the students, that the students gained the value of tolerance, contribution to their value of tolerance has been made, it is ensured that they mostly get with their siblings in their daily lives and help to the individuals with different cultural characteristics.