Early Childhood Preservice Teachers’ Levels of Multiculturalism Perception and Ethnocultural Empathy: A Study in the Turkish Context

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the multiculturalism perceptions and ethnocultural empathy levels of early childhood preservice teachers. This study was conducted in a correlational research design. This study had a sample of 380 undergraduate students studying in the academic year 2021-2022 in the Department of Early Childhood Education, Faculty of Education, Turkey. In this study, Multiculturalism Perception Scale, The Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy, and individual demographic form were used. The One-Way Variance Analysis (ANOVA) and Independent Samples t-tests were used to analyze if there are significant differences between early childhood preservice teachers’ descriptive characteristics on their perceptions of multiculturalism and ethnocultural empathy levels. Pearson correlation was utilized to determine the relationship between early childhood preservice teachers’ perceptions of multiculturalism and their ethnocultural empathy levels. According to research results, early childhood preservice teachers’ perceptions of multiculturalism and their ethnocultural empathy are positively correlated. Furthermore, results revealed that those who have cross-cultural friends have higher mean scores on both multiculturalism perception and ethnocultural empathy than those who do not have cross-cultural friends. Moreover, early childhood preservice teachers who want to take courses on multiculturalism have higher scores on multiculturalism perception and ethnocultural empathy than those who do not want to. The results were discussed in the context of related research and recommendations were given for future research.