Teachers' Views About Culturally Relevant Education in Turkey: a Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine teachers' views about culturallyrelevant education (CRE) in Turkey. The study was carried out as a sequentialexploratory mixed method design. Since both quantitative and qualitative data wereobtained, sampling was achieved in two phases: Quantitative, random-stratifiedsampling and qualitative, purposive sampling. The quantitative data were obtainedfrom 1302 teachers who teach in Van, Diyarbakır, Konya, Antalya, İzmir, İstanbul,and Trabzon provinces. The qualitative study group consisted of 28 teachers whowere selected after analyzing quantitative data accordance with maximum diversityand outliers sampling. Quantitative data were collected by means of scale that weredeveloped by the researchers. Qualitative data were obtained from interviews with28 teachers who have highest and lowest scores on the scale. Descriptive statisticswere used in the analysis of quantitative data, while descriptive analysis and contentanalysis were used in the analysis of qualitative data. According to results, theteachers in Turkey have positive thoughts about CRE and have some concerns. Someof the teachers think that CRE is necessary, while the others think that CRE mayadversely affect the education system and the structure of society. It may be usefulto look at teachers training programs in terms of culturally relevant educationprinciples in Turkey.