Teachers’ Views on Managing Multiculturalism in Classroom Setting

The changes in the social structure caused by war, climate changes, natural disasters, economic and other reasons have created a multicultural social structure and these changes have been reflected in education and they result in multicultural education. Multicultural Education has dimensions such as “content integration”, “knowledge construction”, “prejudice reduction”, “equity pedagogy”, “empowering school culture”. The purpose of this research is to reveal how teachers manage multiculturalism in the classroom. The qualitative research method was used in the research and the data were collected with a semi-structured interview form. Ten teachers from different branches and different levels of schools participated in the research. It has been found out that the participants managed multiculturalism by using some general methods such as question and answer method, using visual learning materials and interactive white board, leading students to take notes, reading activities in the courses. It has been also observed that to manage multiculturalism participants benefit from some special techniques such as explaining concepts in Arabic and Turkish using English words, utilizing nonverbal communication and asking for assistance from the students who can speak Arabic. Besides, it has been seen that participants apply three more strategies to manage multiculturalism such as explaining that multiculturalism is natural; using a universal and humanistic discourse when they are mentioning multiculturalism and disregarding multiculturalism during lessons. Teachers should know and respect the diversity, dispose of prejudices, respect the cultural backgrounds of their students and they should feel multi-culturally competent in order to handle the multiculturalism in the class.