investigating critical cultural awareness of iranian female and male senior high school efl teachers

Critical cultural awareness is a crucial component of intercultural competence that has become an essential subject in foreign language curricula. this non-experimental and descriptive study investigated the critical cultural awareness of 108 female and male efl teachers from different high schools through triangulation of the critical cultural awareness questionnaire, semi-structured interviews with 11 volunteer teachers, and observation of 15 naturally occurring classes. the obtained data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. the findings revealed that the teachers’ knowledge regarding their critical cultural awareness level in the english teaching programs was relatively good. they occasionally applied necessary cultural activities in their teaching practices. furthermore, based on the independent samples t-test, no statistically significant difference was found between female and male efl teachers concerning their level of critical cultural awareness. the findings of this study may provide multiple insights on critical cultural awareness and direct stakeholders in teacher education programs at the university level to pay more attention to raising foreign language teachers’ critical awareness.