The seven colors of Türkiye: investigation of the effectiveness of respect for cultural differences education program for preschool teachers*

ABSTRACT

This research aims to increase the cultural sensitivity of preschool children and their teachers living in different regions of Türkiye through education in respect to differences. It employed an experimental design with pre-test post-test control group including 26 teachers along with 261 children aged 48–72 months. The study was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, the preparatory step, teachers were given six-hour training regarding respect for cultural differences. After the teacher training, they received 84 h of mentoring support for six weeks during the design process of the Seven Colors of Türkiye: Respect for Differences Activities. Teachers from seven regions of Türkiye created activity bags in accordance with the established activity plans. All bags from the regions were implemented after a 7-week bag change procedure. According to the research, both teachers and students strengthened their cultural awareness and students’ respect for differences developed.

KEYWORDS:

• Respect for differences
• sustainable development goals
• intercultural approach
• early childhood education
• teacher education

Ethical issues

The ethics committee permission certificate for the research was obtained with the number of 2022-06/32 from Bursa Uludağ University Ethics Commission.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank to the teachers and children of Bahçeşehir College Preschools for their participation in our study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A geographical region is defined as the part of the earth that, unlike the state, has similar natural, social, and economic characteristics, with borders determined based on these characteristics (Türk Coğrafya Kurumu [Turkish Geography Institute], 2007).