An analysis of ıntercultural sensitivity and ethnocentrism levels of teacher candidates

Abstract

The aim of this research is to find out the effects of two variables on primary and secondary school teacher candidates’ intercultural sensitivity and ethnocentrism levels. One of the variables is the subject matter they studied at university and the other variable is gender. The research model is descriptive. The study group consists of 314 volunteer teacher candidates who attended a private course to prepare for Public Personnel Selection Examination (aka. KPSS) during 2014-2015 academic year. Intercultural sensitivity level of teacher candidates was measured by Intercultural Sensitivity Scale developed by Chen and Starosta (2000) and their ethnocentrism level was measured by Ethnocentrism Scale developed by Neuliep and McCroskey (1997). Linguistic equivalence, validity and reliability studies of two scales were done by Ustun (2011). One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent samples T test were used to analyze the data. Findings of the research showed that there is a statistically significant difference between teacher candidates’ intercultural sensitivity levels in terms of their departments at university, type of high school that they attended. Findings also showed that there is a statistically significant difference between teacher candidates’ ethnocentrism levels in terms of their departments at university.