Multiculturalism in adult education :|the perception and practices of adult educators

Abstract

This study aims to investigate how adult educators perceive and practice multicultural education. A phenomenological research design as a qualitative research method was employed in this study. Ten adult educators from three types of non-formal education institutions were interviewed. The data were analyzed by using content analysis. The findings indicated that the adult educators found multicultural education important and mostly advantageous. The educators associated multicultural education with the coexistence of culturally diverse people in a learning environment and educational materials that consider diversity. Even though the educators touched upon several aspects of multicultural education, most did not define multicultural education comprehensively and extensively. Their practices related to multicultural education were limited to content integration and equity pedagogy. The incorporation of multicultural content by the educators was at the levels of contribution and additive. Transformative and social reconstructionist aspects of multicultural education were lacking in the educators’ definition and practices of multicultural education. This study may contribute to adult educators' understanding, helping them to comprehend multicultural education from transformative and social action approaches. Further, since multicultural education within the adult education context was not paid attention to enough, this study is expected to contribute to national and international literature.