Today's education systems have transformed into a dynamic structure where different cultural identities, languages, beliefs and life practices coexist. Multiculturalism, at the heart of this transformation, is no longer merely a policy or programme concept, but has become an ontological component of education. However, the multi-layered nature of the concept makes it difficult to agree on a common definition. Academic definitions often fail to adequately reflect individuals' perceptions, concerns, and expectations. At this point, metaphors offer a powerful and direct tool for understanding how people perceive the world.

In individuals' processes of understanding and making sense of abstract and complex phenomena, metaphors are not merely ordinary tools of comparison but serve a fundamental cognitive function. As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) state in their theoretical framework, metaphors are not just figures of speech that embellish our language but are cognitive maps that structure our ways of thinking, our perceptions, and even our actions. In this context, metaphors serve as analytical mirrors that reveal the "implicit beliefs" that lie deep within educational stakeholders, beliefs that may not be directly expressible in words.

Increasing metaphorical studies in educational sciences have shown their effectiveness in revealing individuals’ conceptual frameworks regarding a concept. Understanding how a concept with sociological and pedagogical dimensions, such as multiculturalism, is interpreted in the context of teacher education is of critical importance. This is because the image of multiculturalism in the minds of teachers and teacher educators is indicative of the attitude they will adopt towards differences in the classroom, the level of empathy they will develop, and the inclusive educational practices they will implement. If an educator imagines this concept as "chaos," they will try to manage diversity in the classroom as a crisis; if they see it as a "mosaic," they will argue that each piece is a value that must be preserved.

Multiculturalism is an indispensable understanding for social harmony, based on accepting individual differences such as age, gender, belief, language, race, and sexual orientation as riches and living in harmony within the same geography (APA, 2002; Banks, 2008). This approach is particularly vital in educational processes because the cognitive and personality development of students from different cultural backgrounds is directly influenced by their unique identities. As Kağıtçıbaşı and Cemalcılar (2017) emphasize, individuals' behaviors in communication processes are a reflection of their own cultural values. Therefore, adopting a multicultural structure is an academic and social necessity for achieving social peace and making education inclusive.

A review of the literature reveals that studies on multiculturalism include the analysis of teaching staff's conceptual perceptions through metaphors (Aydın and Tonbuloğlu, 2016), the integration of multicultural education into the curriculum (Babayiğit et al.,   2025), and the collection of in-depth views on the subject (Hong, 2017; Suri and Chandra, 2021), and determining stakeholder attitudes (Kimzan and Arıkan, 2018; Solehuddin and Budiman, 2019; Djonko-Moore et al., 2018). Based on the existing theoretical framework, this study aims to discover how teacher candidates and teacher educators, who are the most fundamental stakeholders in the teacher education ecosystem, conceptualize multiculturalism through mental images. The main originality of the study lies in bringing both groups together on the same analytical plane to offer a comparative perspective on multiculturalism, thereby deciphering the conceptual harmony between the mindsets of those who design the program and the candidates who are shaped by it. This approach, which also aligns with the goals of inclusivity and democratic competence in the European Education Area (EEA), makes the link between theoretical idealism and practical reality visible, thereby providing a multi-layered and original contribution to global teacher education discussions.

Designed within the qualitative research paradigm, this study is built on a basic qualitative pattern. Such studies focus on explaining how individuals make sense of certain phenomena, how they construct the world, and the meanings distilled from their experiences (Merriam, 2023). Metaphors, frequently used in educational research, are effective tools within the qualitative tradition for exploring participants' perceptual worlds (Kılcan, 2021). Since the study aimed to reflect the subjective perspectives of teacher candidates and faculty members on the concept of multiculturalism, this methodological approach was considered the most appropriate. The study group consisted of teacher candidates studying at education faculties in different geographical regions of Turkey and faculty members working at the same institutions. To increase the diversity and representativeness of the sample, a maximum diversity sampling strategy was adopted in determining the participants. This allowed for the analysis of stakeholders' perceptions of multiculturalism across a wide range of faculties with different socio-cultural and regional dynamics. During the data collection phase of the study, researchers plan to use a form designed by them, consisting of two main components. To validate the form's content and face validity, the opinions of two academics specializing in educational sciences will be sought, and the draft will be finalized based on the critical feedback received. The first section of the form will include a personal information section to determine participants' demographic characteristics such as gender, branch, and class level. In the second section, an open-ended prompt consisting of the statement "Multiculturalism is like …………………. because ………………………….." will be presented to analyze participants' mental representations . To establish a cognitive framework, the concept of metaphor will be defined for participants prior to the application, and a concrete example will be provided using the image of a "teacher." Through this process, teacher candidates will be able to express their unique perceptions of multiculturalism in a coherent image and logical reasoning.

The findings obtained from the research are expected to clarify the conceptual maps of stakeholders in different layers of the teacher education ecosystem regarding the concept of multiculturalism. The study will identify a meaningful level of differentiation or overlap between the mental images produced by teacher educators and teacher candidates in terms of theoretical depth and application-orientedness. This will reveal the extent to which the current discourse on multiculturalism in education faculties influences candidates' professional identity construction and how it is reflected at the level of mental representations. Most importantly, this research will lay bare the extent to which such a vital and concrete phenomenon as multiculturalism has found a place in the climate of education faculties, the level to which it exists as a reality, and how it is interpreted by stakeholders. The thematic categories obtained will be open to discussion as to whether they approach multicultural education as merely a methodological necessity or as a philosophical adoption. Ultimately, this research aims to analyze the link between the "theoretical outputs" of teacher training programs and the "tacit beliefs" of stakeholders, thereby offering a theoretical projection for a more holistic, inclusive teacher education policy centered on social harmony.

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