Primary School Teachers' Attitudes and Knowledge Levels on Democracy and Multicultural Education: A Scale Development Study

Abstract

Multicultural education is a recent educational perspective that cares about the needs of different cultural groups. As teachers perform the educational procedure, they have importance in achieving the goals of multicultural education. In this study, a concept map to measure teachers' knowledge on multicultural education and democracy and multicultural education attitude scale were developed for primary school teachers. A pilot scheme was performed in a working group with 130 primary school teachers from Ankara and Istanbul where two most populous cities in Turkey. An exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach's Alpha Reliability Coefficient showed that democracy and multicultural education attitude scale is made up of five sub-dimensions (sub-scales) and it is a reliable and valid for attitude scale. Reliability and validity for concept map was supported by a group of experts who work in multicultural education field to revise a new concept map. In addition, in the pilot scheme the concepts Universal Values, Human Rights and Showing Respect to Differences were in more than one headings. Thus, regulations were made to increase validity and reliability.