The Effect of Multicultural Education Beliefs and Multicultural Acceptance on the Multicultural Teaching Efficacy of Pre-Service Early Childhood Teachers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of causal relationships among multicultural teaching efficacy and related variables, multicultural education beliefs and multicultural acceptance and to provide basic meaningful data pertaining to the promotion of multicultural education for pre-service early childhood teachers. Data were gathered from 233 questionnaires presented to pre-service early childhood teachers who were studying in the Department of Early Childhood Education, using a survey questionnaire format. The data were analyzed using SPSS and t-tests, with ANOVA, a correlation analysis, and a multiple regression analysis also conducted. The major findings of this study were as follows; first, there was significant difference between teaching function in multicultural teaching efficacy and grades by pre-service early childhood teachers. Second, there were significant differences among teaching function efficacy and everyday life efficacy in relation to multicultural teaching efficacy and multicultural practice experience in pre-service early childhood teachers. Third, multicultural teaching efficacy was significantly correlated with multicultural education beliefs and multicultural acceptance. Fourth, multicultural education beliefs and multicultural acceptance were significant predicting variables with regard to the multicultural teaching efficacy of pre-service early childhood teachers. The findings show that it is important to provide basic data to understand and create multicultural education programs for pre-service early childhood teachers.