DOI: 10.51726/jlr.1937222 ISSN: 2602-4578

Culturally Ready or Not? Pre-Service and Experienced EFL Teachers’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Self-Efficacy towards Multicultural Education

Sibel Ersel, Fhime Berrin Adanur
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As linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms become the norm across educational contexts globally, the dispositions that English Language (EFL) teachers hold toward multicultural education (MCE) bear directly on the quality and inclusivity of the instruction they deliver. This study investigates the beliefs, attitudes, and self-efficacy of pre-service and experienced EFL teachers toward multicultural education, and examines whether these dimensions vary according to demographic characteristics including age, educational background, class level, teaching experience, and academic qualification. A descriptive survey design was employed with 83 participants, 74 pre-service and 9 experienced EFL teachers from a higher education context. An adapted version of the Teachers' Beliefs, Attitudes, and Self-Efficacy towards Multicultural Education Scale (Yıldırım & Tezci, 2016) was used to collect data, which were analysed quantitatively. Both groups demonstrated notably positive dispositions across all three constructs. Pre-service teachers showed strong agreement with individual rights beliefs (M = 1.66) and high self-efficacy in applying diverse learning strategies (M = 1.38). Experienced teachers exhibited strongly positive beliefs about individual rights (M = 1.38), favourable attitudes toward adopting cultural diversity (M = 1.55), and high self-efficacy in managing (M = 1.55) and understanding diversity (M = 1.48). Statistically significant differences were identified among pre-service teachers based on age and length of studying English, and among experienced teachers according to academic qualification. These findings carry substantive implications for the design of teacher education programmes and continuing professional development in EFL contexts.

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