Evaluation of primary school teachers' views on students from different cultural structures

There are many factors that affect the efficiency of the education process and its convenience to the requirements of the era. Among those factors, teachers are the keys. One of the characteristics that teachers should have from one the requirements of the era is intercultural sensitivity. Primary School Teachers, who work at the beginning of compulsory education, are the first teachers that many students encounter first. Therefore, classroom teachers' perceptions of cultural difference and intercultural sensitivity are important. For this reason, in this study, in order to reveal the cultural differences and intercultural sensitivities of classroom teachers, a mixed research model was applied in Şahinbey district of Gaziantep. Data were collected from 401 classroom teachers working in Şahinbey district. Data were collected using the "Personal Information Form", "Intercultural Sensitivity Scale" and "What are the factors that you see as cultural differences in students" open-ended question. The study group consisted of 272 people who answered the open-ended question. Descriptive analysis was used to analyse qualitative data, t-test and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyse quantitative data. As a result of the research, it was found that the total score of the intercultural sensitivity scale and the mean score of the sub-dimension of the male teachers were higher than the female teachers. No significant difference was found between the level of education and the level of occupational seniority and intercultural sensitivity. On the other hand, there was a significant difference in terms of self-confidence sub-dimension between teachers with 16 years and over seniority and teachers with 11-15 years of seniority. In addition, there is a significant difference between the teachers who have 16 years and over seniority and other professional seniorities in the sub-dimension of liking interaction, and it has been concluded that teachers with more than 16 years seniority like more interaction. As a result of the analysis conducted on the qualitative data of the research, the two most frequently mentioned cultural differences were identified as differences based on language and social experiences.