Protecting Refugee Students’ Wellbeing After Research

Abstract

This study examines how Syrian refugee children’s participation in an ethnographic study affected their well-being, using the premises of attachment theory and listening as care. Three Syrian children, aged 10–12 in Turkish public schools, participated in this study. The data of this study were generated by combining these children’s interviews and observations in 2016 and new interviews in 2018. This study argues that the researcher may be the closest option for these children to develop a long and secure relationship because their teachers and the school community provided misguided messages about the researcher’s role in the school and these children’s expectations from the researcher. Given this situation, the findings of this study suggest that researchers should allocate time after research to understand how their presence affects refugee children and prepare culturally relevant and individualized exit strategies to avoid harming them.