Becoming the teacher of a refugee child: Teachers’ evolving experiences in Turkey

ABSTRACT

Anti-immigrant discourses are sweeping across the globe while forced displacement brings educational, political, economic, and social challenges in many countries. Turkey’s latest initiative is the inclusion of almost one million school-aged Syrian children into the public education system. In this research, we aim to understand the evolving experiences of teachers of Syrian refugee students in relation to inclusive education in Turkey. We conducted our fieldwork in a public school located in a disadvantaged neighbourhood of the capital city of Turkey which had a dense population of Syrian refugee students. Using a phenomenological approach, we interviewed three early childhood teachers and two Turkish as a second language teachers over a semester. Informed by a constant-comparative method, our analysis revealed that teachers’ notions around particular themes exemplify Fraser’s three-dimensional social justice framework dimensions – redistribution, recognition, and representation – and their practices are accordingly moving on a continuum of inclusivity-oriented to exclusion-oriented actions. The study contributes to creating a dialogue about inclusive education in terms of imagining new ways to support refugee children and their teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• Syrian refugee students
• social justice
• child refugees
• teacher education
• Early childhood education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Elif Karsli-Calamak, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of early childhood education in the Department of Instruction and Teacher Education at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on family engagement in culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and social and cultural contexts of young children’s mathematics. Her current work involves supporting teachers of Syrian refugee children and collaborating with their families in public schools of Turkey.

Sultan Kilinc, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Syracuse University. Utilising sociocultural, interdisciplinary, and social justice perspectives, in her research, she focuses on inclusive education policy and practices for historically underserved students, including students with disabilities and students with refugee status. Her other research interests include the integration of drama as a teaching tool in dual-language early childhood education settings to support inclusive education.

Notes

1 In this article, the use of SRS does not refer to a particular child or children and does not intend to restrict children's identities to their refugee status. It rather refers to children's shared experiences, such as forced displacement, legal status, and enrolment in public schools, which were relevant to our research.