TEACHING SYRIAN STUDENTS IN TURKISH SCHOOLS: EXPERIENCES OF TEACHERS

Abstract

The Syrian civil war has resulted in approximately three and a half million Syrians relocating in Turkey. In 2016, the Ministry of Education implemented an inclusive approach to schooling of Syrian asylum-seekers’ children by educating them in public schools with their Turkish peers. This was intended as a means to address their educational needs, assist them with integration into Turkish culture, and prevent a generation gap. Public schooling, as a basic human right and as a way of integration to Turkish society, is provided for free at all levels of education in Turkey. The inclusion of Syrian students into the Turkish school environment is a new experience for Turkish teachers, and if the inclusion process is not managed properly, the consequences can have negative effects on both students and their teachers. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of teachers teaching Syrian students in the city of Kilis, where the number of asylum-seekers outnumbered its original population and almost one-fifth of the students in public schools are Syrians. The guiding question of this research was “What are the lived experiences of primary and middle school teachers educating Syrian children in inclusive classrooms?” Five teachers from four different primary and middle schools were interviewed. The six open-ended interview questions allowed the participants to reflect on their experiences. The data were collected during the spring semester of 2017. The interviews were analyzed according to thematic methods. Three themes emerged: Language barriers, lack of family support, and teachers’ lack of pedagogical skills for teaching asylum-seeker students.