Conceptions of Class Teachers on Democracy and Diversity

Introduction: Globalization provided people in once isolated lands with an array of democracy types and international principles. The boosting traditional, conventional, societal, ethnical, and cultural differences in countries all over the world are pushing educational authorities to reexamine their contemporary habits, customs, principles, and practices of citizenship. Examining the assumptions and methods of cultural democracy in education settings is the foundation of critical pedagogy. Thus, a critical multicultural pedagogy is formed on critical views on democracy and diversity by illuminating the transformative nature of citizenship. Accordingly, this study inquires the conceptual grounds of class teachers in a phenomenological tradition in that it investigates the conceptions of these teachers on the concept of diversity and democracy. The data of the study were gathered through a questionnaire, besides semi-structured interview questions designed by the researcher. Based on a mix method research design, this study makes use of both qualitative and quantitative techniques to collect the required data. 160 class teachers officially working in diverse regions in Turkey voluntarily participated in the study (N=150 for the questionnaire and N=10 for the interview). Related implications to raise the awareness of class teachers on diversity and democracy were presented at the end of the study. Methods: This study searched for the conceptual underpinnings of the class teachers in the phenomenological tradition (Marton, 1981). Just like other methods to utilize philosophical phenomenology to the social sciences (Entwistle, 1997), the interpretative process of phenomenographic research is quite similar to that of grounded theory which refers to a set of systematic inductive methods to practice qualitative research (Richardson, 1999). Based on a mix method research design, this study makes use of both qualitative and quantitative techniques to collect data. Results: The findings demonstrate that class teachers are open to new perspectives, diverse religions and different genders. Thus, it can be said that a critical perspective was adopted by class teachers. Further, class teachers should be included into curriculum and syllabus design which are solely carried out by policy makers. Otherwise, critical skills of class teachers might be destroyed in the process of education. Thus, primary school curriculums and textbooks need to focus on the importance of demo