THE STUDY OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GLOBAL

CITIZENSHIP AND MULTICULTURAL PERSONALITY AND

CRITICAL THINKING IN PRESERVICE TEACHERS
Mehmet Melik KAYA, Dumlupnar University, Institute of Educational Sciences,
mehmet.kaya@dpu.edu.tr

Multiculturalism is a remarkable concept for disciplines like the economy, education and
psychology, as well as being an important sociological phenomenon particularly for the
countries which are developed and developing. Multiculturalism always exists in countries
referred to as immigrant countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia which cannot assume
the identity of the national state due to the immigrations. Furthermore, advances in
communication and transportation technologies in particular, the argument that national states
reach the end of their lifespan, the erosion of national identity and global human discourses
have begun to increase in recent years well. And also, tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles and
workers have formed the basis of these discourses. All these developments has led to the
emergence of multiculturalism concept that is against all forms of discrimination and uniformity
in society by creating the basis of multiculturalism. The emergence of multiculturalism and the
situation of the world that becomes a global village have become essential to emerge a portrait
of a citizen who is sensitive not only to his country but also to the whole world. It emerged as a
global citizen in this portrait. The global citizen aims to educate people who can look through
the eyes of mankind and universal values by aiming to create global citizenship besides creating
a sura-national identity. Critical thinking is a type of thinking that consists of mental processes
such as reasoning, analysis and evaluation. It is important to be able to look critically in a world
where it has become globalized, unstable and the problems have increased. It is crucial to
educate reasonable citizens for a sustainable society by critical thinking. It has a very important
function in educating good people, good citizens, good parents and good managers. By this
aspect, critical thinking make a significant contribution to emergence of democracy, tolerance,
universal values and citizens who adopt universal values. Because both democracy and
tolerance can only fully come true in a society where reasonable citizens can think critically,
that is in an area where there is a public opinion.
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between global citizenship and
multicultural personality and critical thinking in preservice teachers. The study group consisted
of 363 preservice teachers who attend different departments of Faculty of Education at
Dumlupnar University. Data collection was done through Scale Universal Citizenship,
Multicultural Personality Questionnaire and Critical Thinking Disposition Scale. Because the
data exhibited a normal distribution as a result of preliminary analysis, Pearson product-moment
correlation analysis of parametric tests and multiple regression analysis were used for data
analysis. According to the findings, there is positive relationship between critical thinking and
multicultural personality trends and global citizenship. In other words, as multicultural
personality scores increased, level of global citizenship also increased. Or as critical thinking
tendencies decreased, the level of universal citizenship decreased. In a society where people
adopt universal values and can think critically, democracy, justice and tolerance become
dominant. And in a globalized world where there is no critical thinking, consequences of wrong
thinking and wrong decisions will end up with global violence, intolerance, injustice and war
that has high destructive power.
Keywords: Global citizenship, multiculturalism and critical thinking.