TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARD MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION: A STUDY OF RELAIBILITY AND VALIDITY

The aim of this paper was twofold: The first one was to investigate the reliability and validity of Turkish version of Teacher Multicultural Attitude Survey (TMAS) developed by Jojeph G. Ponterotto (Ponterotto, Baluch, Greig, & Rivera, 1998). Having adapted into Turkish, the scale was applied to total 415 teachers, selected randomly from different branches in Tokat, Turkey, of which 135 female and 280 male. Cronbach alpha coefficient for the reliability of the Turkish version of the TMAS was found to be .74. As a result of the factor analysis, there was no sufficient proof on the alleged single dimensionality of the scale. Secondly, we also investigated whether teachers' attitudes toward multicultural education differ in terms of variables such as educational level, gender, instructional area of specialization, the type of graduated faculty or college, years teaching, the location of their present school, cultural environment of their earlier education. The results indicated that there were no differences in teacher attitudes toward multicultural education according to the gender variable. On the other hand, there were statistically significant differences according to the teachers' educational level, instructional specialization, the type of graduated faculty or college, years in teaching and the location of their present school variables.