Abstract:

The world is currently witnessing a dizzying change as a result of political, economic and especially technological developments. These developments have had a great impact on countries, communities and individuals. As an expected outcome of these influences, such issues as globalism, nationalism, locality, national culture, intercultural convergence, multiculturalism, multilingualism, intercultural conformity, tolerance among difference religions have started to be discussed. At this point, people, influenced by consciousness of democracy, existential philosophy and psychology, have started to give importance to each other just because they are human beings. Thus, accepting individuals as they are and improving their unique abilities and capabilities without stereotyping them has become the major goal of education. That’s why there is a need for educators who can tolerate biological, sexual, racial, religious, cultural, economic and political differences among students. This has become more of an issue in countries which are members or candidates of European Union because they are multicultural. Education is the most significant means to follow these changes. The new primary education programs which has been put into practice in Turkey place emphasis on multicultural education, which can be seen as an important act in the EU accession period. However, it is highly essential that teachers are inclined to multicultural education as they are the ones to carry the programs into effect. The study gains importance in this respect. This study aims to find out the probationary teachers’ level of inclination to multicultural education.