Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
International Journal of Field Education, cilt.10, sa.1, ss.58-75, 2023 (Hakemli Dergi)
The aim of this study is to reveal the opinions of school administrators, who
are working in regions of Istanbul with a dense refugee population, on
refugee students and their families. The population of the research, which
was designed with the general survey model, consists of a total of 442 school
administrators, including 6 deputy principals, 151 principals and 285
assistant principals, working at different education levels of public schools in
Küçükçekmece in the 2020-2021 academic year. The sample of the study is
52 school administrators selected from the population. Of the sample group,
27 were male and 25 were female, and 34 of them were working in primary
school, 10 in secondary school and 8 in high school. An 11-question
questionnaire form was developed and applied to obtain the research data. In
addition to the personal characteristics of the participants, the questionnaire
includes questions about their experiences with refugee students and their
parents, the problems they face and their suggestions for solutions to the
problems. The research questionnaire was digitized through Google Forms
due to Covid-19 measures and participant responses were collected digitally.
Open-ended questions in the questionnaire form were analyzed by content
analysis. According to the participants, the most important advantage of the
presence of refugee students in Turkey is the richness of culture. School
administrators mainly focused on the problems they face with refugee
students and their families. They stated that they had problems with refugee
students and their families regarding language and communication problems,
difficulties in refugee students' adaptation to school culture, refugee families'
lack of interest in education, and students' tendency to violence. In order to
solve the problems they experienced, the participants made suggestions for
providing language and communication support to refugee students and their
parents, introducing Turkish culture, organizing the curricula implemented in
Turkey in a way to meet the educational needs of international migrant and
refugee students, and planning adaptation activities.