Investigation of the Impact of Emotional Intelligence Efficacy on Teachers’ Multicultural Attitudes

Abstract

It is important to have a positive attitude and perceptions towards cultural values, one of the key characteristics students have. It is observed that having a positive attitude towards students with different cultural values contributes to achievement in terms of education. Much of the research has revealed that educators have been found to have a positive attitude towards multicultural education. This study, however, strives to measure and determine the extent and level of the impact of the emotional intelligence efficacy on teachers' multicultural attitudes. The working group is comprised of 315 teachers working in primary schools in two provinces in the Southeast and two in the Marmara Region in 2015 – 2016 academic year. "The Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEIS) ", developed by Schutte et al. (1998) adapted into Turkish language by Cetinkaya and Alparslan (2011), and "Multicultural Attitude Scale", developed by Ponterotto et al.  (1998) adapted into Turkish by Yazici et al. (2009), were used in this research to determine teachers’ emotional intelligence efficacy and multicultural attitudes. The data were analyzed Using SPSS v.17.0 statistical software and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation and Stepwise regression analyzes were performed. The results show that subscales of emotional intelligence have an impact on the teachers’ multicultural attitudes at a significant level.

Keywords: Multiculturalism, attitude, emotional intelligence, cultural values, efficacy.