Effects of Critical Multicultural Education on Preservice Teachers’ Multicultural Attitudes and Efficacy

Abstract

The aim of this study is to find out the effects of critical multicultural education (CME) on preservice teachers’ multicultural attitudes and efficacy. In order to investigate the effects of critical multicultural education, a nine-week CME program is designed. The program is based on Banks’ (2015) multicultural education approaches and dimensions. For this study, the multicultural content is integrated into English Language courses of the preservice teachers studying at English Language Teaching (ELT) program. A total of 46 preservice teachers participated for the study and a quasy-experimental design with an experimental and a control group is employed. Before and after the application, Multicultural Efficacy Scale (MES) is administered to all the participants (23 in control and 23 in experimental group). The MES is composed of two subscales; one is multicultural attitudes and the other one is multicultural efficacy. While in the control group the existing language program is applied, the experimental group is provided with critical multicultural education which is integrated into English courses. At the end of 9 weeks, the analysis of pretest and posttest results revealed that there is a significant difference in the multicultural attitudes and multicultural efficacy of experimental group before and after the program. Further, the posttest results showed that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control group in terms of preservice teachers’ multicultural attitudes and efficacy. As a result, CME applied in experimental group had significant and positive effects on preservice teachers’ multicultural attitudes and efficacy. Therefore, in order to increase preservice teachers’ multicultural attitudes and efficacy, CME can be provided for preservice teachers at teacher training programs at the collage and universities.