The Role of Cultural Intelligence on the Pre-service Teachers’ Attitude toward Multi-cultural Education

Abstract

In this study, the relationship between pre-service teachers’ cultural intelligence and their attitude
toward multi-cultural education has been investigated. Sample of the study consisted of 485 pre-service teachers,
studying at Hacettepe University during 2013-2014 academic years. “Cultural Intelligence Scale” was used for
measuring pre-service teachers’ cultural intelligence level, whereas “Attitude Scale towards Multicultural
Education for Pre-service Teachers” was used to determine their attitude towards multicultural education. Data
were analyzed by multiple correlation (Pearson Correlation Coefficient), Factorial ANOVA and hierarchical
regression techniques in addition to descriptive statistics such as arithmetic mean, standard deviation and
percentiles. Findings of the study showed that the mean scores of attitude toward multi-cultural education and
cultural intelligence are relatively high. It has been found that there is a significant, positive and moderate
relationship between cultural intelligence and attitude toward multi-cultural education. In addition, it has been
found that gender, settlement and gender-settlement combination create significant differences on the standardized
attitude scores toward multi-cultural education. Moreover, it has been seen that demographic variables and three
dimensions of cultural intelligence (metacognition, motivation and behavior) are significant predictors of the
attitude toward multi-cultural education. As the result of the study, it has been concluded that cultural intelligence
plays an important role on the attitude toward multi-cultural education.