The perceptions of faculty members'on multicultural education in Turkey

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitude of academicians regarding multicultural education working for education departments in Turkey. To this end, an online scale and open ended questions were emailed to the academicians of education departments in 83universities in Turkey. The study utilized mixed research methods. There were a total of 745 participants 520 of whom completed the Multicultural Education Attitude Scale. Their responses were graded and these grades were used in generating various analyses. Based on the responses, Cronbach Alpha reliability analysis was implemented and the reliability coefficient of the scale was determined to be .92. The mean of academicians? scores demonstrates that they have a strong attitude about multicultural education. Moreover, demographic data on academicians was used as an independent variable and regression analysis was performed. Regression analysis showed that it is not possible to infer the attitudes of participants on multicultural education based on their demographic data. Content analysis method was utilized to analyze, interpret and assess the responses to the open-ended questions. The evaluation of the data indicated that most of the academicians (92%) consider multicultural education as an advantageous form of education for Turkey; think that the disadvantages of multicultural education may stem from inexperienced parties offering related courses and believe that integrating the concept of multiculturalism to undergraduate curriculum is important to train teachers who will offer multicultural education. Keywords: Multiculturalism, Multicultural Education, Academicians? Attitude.