Investigation of multicultural competencies of social studies teachers candidates

Multiculturalism is a concept stand on unity ideal based on ethnicity, social class, education, gender, age and other cultural differences. In general, it includes accepting differences in a society without bias and living in harmony and peace with all cultures and differences. Education is one of the most important tools for the acceptance of multiculturalism by all individuals in the society. Multicultural education can be expressed as giving equal opportunities to all students regardless of racial, ethnic, social class, gender and other cultural differences. As it is known, our country has a multicultural identity that continues in certain regions from past to present. In addition, Turkey's geopolitical position, developments in the Middle Eastern countries and immigrants from Central Asia Turkic Republics led to the expansion of multicultural structure in our country. Therefore, teachers who are the implementers of educational programs in our country should have multicultural competencies. The aim of this study was to investigate the multicultural competencies of prospective teachers who will work in multicultural classes. In this context, survey model of quantitative research methods has been employed. Cluster sampling strategy was used to determine the study group and 591 prospective teachers were reached. The data were obtained by "Multicultural Competency Scale" which was developed by Guyton and Wesche (2005) and adapted to Turkish by Akcaoğlu and Arsal (2018). Frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Mann Whitney-U test, Kruskal Wallis test, and Spearman Brown Row Differences Correlation Coefficient were used in the analysis of the data. According to the findings, the multicultural experiences of pre-service teachers and their self-efficacy towards multicultural education were found to be 'moderate level' and their attitudes towards multicultural education were found to be 'high level'. In addition, according to the variables of gender, age, number of siblings and family, the multicultural experience of candidate teachers was determined; their attitudes towards multicultural education according to gender, age and geographical region variables; It was determined that selfefficacy towards multicultural education was significantly changed according to the number of siblings and the geographical region of the family. Finally, there is a positive correlation between the multicultural experience of candidate teachers and their attitudes and self-efficacy towards multicultural education.