Educational problems of Syrian refugee students

Abstract

This qualitative study tries to explore the problems faced by the Syrian Refugee primary school students who immigrated to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) with their friends in the educational settings and the solutions to those problems from the perspectives of those students. The qualitative data were collected through semi-structural interviews from the 15 Syrian Students in different grades. The data were analyzed by the content analysis and descriptive analysis technique in NVivo 12. It was found out that the students were exposed the mostly ‘’ violence/ hit’’, ‘’ be disturbed’’ and ‘’ignorance’’ by their classmates. The refugee students think that those problems can be solved by their teachers, principles, and families. Some of the students said that they could solve the problems they faced by ‘’ staying away’’ or by ‘’fighting with those who behave badly.’’ Based on the interview decoding, all the Syrian refugee students expect ‘’ not to exclude them’’, ‘’respect’’ and ‘’love’’. According to these results, providing social-psychological support, language teaching programs, and teaching tolerance to local students would help to solve the immigrant students’ problems having with their friends at school.