Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, cilt.17, sa.4, ss.64-86, 2022 (Hakemli Dergi)
Türkiye hosts a diversity of numerous cultural groups regarding its location and social structure. The inclusion of these culturally diverse groups in the education system makes it necessary to evaluate teachers' perspectives and experiences on differences. The purpose of the study is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of cultural diversity as well as the opportunities and threats that cultural diversity poses to teachers. The research is designed as a qualitative phenomenological study to reveal the perceptions of the participants about the cultural diversity that exists in schools. In this study, teachers were reached by using the snowball sampling method of the purposive sampling approach. 118 teachers who are still teaching in Türkiye’s various regions during the 2021-2022 academic year voluntarily filled out the online form. The data obtained were transferred to the MAXQDA package program and similar expressions were gathered under four main themes: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The main themes were created to consist of the steps of the SWOT analysis. Then, content analysis was applied to the data categorized according to the SWOT analysis steps. According to the findings, the strengths of cultural diversity in the classroom mostly gathered around “knowledge construction” and “supporting creativity”. The findings also indicated that teachers' views on the weaknesses of cultural diversity mostly gathered around “difficulty addressing all differences” and “lack of communication”, and teachers’ views on the threats against cultural diversity mostly gathered around “cultural conflict” and “cultural insensitivity”. Finally, teachers also believe that “learning cultural components” and gaining new experiences” are the most important opportunities for cultural diversity.