Perception and awareness of middle school students and social sciences teachers on multiculturalism and multicultural education (Kocaeli province as case study)

Multiculturalism is a concept with increasing popularity in recent years. It has growing usage in many fields such as politics, law, education. Multiculturalism solution to critical problems of government in an era of globalization. Different cultures have to coexist with the collapse of the boundaries, and intense influx of migration. Multiculturalism has a philosophy that embraces different cultures, religions, and identities altogether maintaining a just, tolerant and prejudiced free order. Multicultural policies are adopted in governance to facilitate a social life respecting human rights. Especially in democratic states with a multicultural structure, multicultural education is being implemented to provide equal education without discrimination in the educational setting and to ensure that students with different cultures can protect their own culture. With the multicultural education, it is aimed that the students first learn the culture and learn about themselves. The most outstanding aims of multicultural education are; In the educational environment, to help educators in reducing prejudices of themselves and their students, to respect diversity, to build empathy, to attain democratic attitudes, actions and beliefs. The most important task in multicultural education is on social sciences course; thus the responsibility falls in the arms of social sciences teachers. Therefore, it is very important how multiculturalism and multicultural education perceived by social sciences teachers. The aim of this research is to examine perception and awareness of middle school students towards multiculturalism; And determine the perceptions of social sciences teachers towards multicultural education. "Multicultural Citizenship Perceptions and Awareness" scale for 6th, 7th and 8th grade students in secondary schools in Kocaeli; And "Multicultural Education Percep-tion Scale" were applied to social sciences teachers. 1222 middle school students and 355 social studies teachers were selected by the sampling method of the study. In the research, a descriptive scanning model was applied as a quantitative research method. Reliability coefficiency of the instrument used for teachers was 0.91; The reliability coefficiency of the measuring instrument used for the students was found to be 0.94. By analyzing the data obtained from the research, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal Wallis tests were applied to determine whether there were any significant differences among both the secondary school students' awareness and perceptions of multiculturalism and the social sciences teachers' perceptions of multicultural education in terms of various variables. According to the findings of the research, the perception of middle school students towards multiculturalism was found to be high on the positive side. In addition, there was a significant difference in multicultural perception and awareness regarding gender, grade level, parental education level, family monthly income and friendship status in different cultures. There was no significant difference between students' mother tongue, the frequency of using a mother tongue, the language spoken at home, the variables of learning and information sources, and multicultural citizenship perceptions and awareness. Additionally, social sciences teachers' perceptions on multicultural education are highly positive. There was no significant difference between social sciences teachers' perceptions of multicultural education in terms of various variables such as gender, age, graduated department, educational status and seniority. It has also been found that social sciences teachers see multifaceted events as the most important consequence of the transfer of curriculum to multicultural education and that they see universal values as being in the forefront. According to social sciences teachers, the biggest disadvantage of multicultural education is that it is an issue open to abuse in our country. Key Words: Multiculturalism, Multicultural Education, Perception and Awareness,Student and Teacher.