Multicultural education as the supportive component of English language curriculum: a mixed-methods experimental design study at a Turkish University

ABSTRACTMulticultural education has emerged as a response to diversity in society, promising a more equal and inclusive opportunity for all citizens. As a country that has accepted a lot of migrants recently, Türkiye needs to adopt a multicultural approach in its educational settings. This study examines the integration of the multicultural education approach into English language teaching through an experimental practice using the Content Integration Model. The effects of this application on preparatory class English learners at a Turkish university in terms of respect for differences, critical thinking skills and understanding of democracy were analyzed. In this study, which used a mixed-methods experimental design, quantitative data were obtained through three different scales and analyzed with descriptive statistics and mixed-design ANOVA tests, whereas content analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data obtained from focus group interview form, researcher's diary, and student products. As a result of the analysis of the quantitative data, it was seen that there was no significant difference between the pre- and post-test scores of the groups, however, the qualitative data revealed that the students showed improvement in areas such as intercultural skill development, communication, increasing self-consciousness and sharing their opinions through multicultural education practices.KEYWORDS: Multicultural educationrespect for diversitycritical thinkingdemocracy perceptionContent Integration modelEnglish language curriculum Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis study was produced from the doctoral thesis of Kadriye Dimici under the supervision of Alper Başbay at Ege University, Türkiye. This work was supported by TÜBİTAK [grant number 2211/A] and Ege University BAP [grant number SDK-2019-20930].Notes on contributorsKadriye DimiciKadriye Dimici is currently an Assistant Prof. in the department of Foreign Language Teaching at İzmir Democracy University, Türkiye. She received her BA degree in Foreign Language Education programme in 2011 and her MA degree in the programme of Adult Education from Boğaziçi University in 2015. She got her Ph.D. degree in Curriculum and Instruction programme from Ege University in 2021. She writes and presents widely on issues of multicultural education, English language teaching, curriculum development, internationalisation, adult education, and higher education studies.Alper BaşbayAlper Başbay is currently working as a Prof. in the Curriculum and Instruction Program of Ege University, Türkiye. He has had experience in the field of curriculum development for more than 20 years and he is working as the Dean of the Education Faculty. He received his BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at Hacettepe University. He writes and presents widely on issues of multicultural education and curriculum development.