Abstract
This study investigates major challenges encountered by Syrian refugee youth in public high schools in Turkey, focusing on three sources of assessment: the refugee students themselves and their parents and educators. Based on qualitative interpretive research methodology, twenty-three individual semi-structured interviews were conducted. The study simultaneously hears the voices of the Syrian refugee students as well as those of their parents, teachers, and principals. Making friends among Turkish peers, social integration in school and the host society, discrimination, feeling lonely or even depressed, and other displacement problems are the crucial issues identified by this study. While most of the teachers and principals interviewed focused more on academic problems as the main reason for the deterioration of the majority of Syrian youth’s education, refugee students and their parents claimed that the psycho-social challenges are more difficult and thus problematic.
 
 Keywords: Acculturation, Psycho-social needs, Refugee education, Syrian students.
Highlights
The phenomenon of refugees, displaced and/or stateless people, is constantly increasing worldwide
The current refugee problem has had a knock on effect on the education of students and families. In line with this problem, this study aims to investigate the experiences of Syrian refugee students from the basis of their psycho-social needs
As academic agents of change, the research team were concerned to share the results of our research in the hope that it will lead to reflection on the possibilities of improving the status of these young refugees, the future generation of both their native and host countries
Summary
The phenomenon of refugees, displaced and/or stateless people, is constantly increasing worldwide. According to the United Nations Refugee Centre (2017), 65.6 million people have been forced from their homes. Around 22.5 million of these are refugees (over half under the age of 18) and most have been denied access to basic rights such as education (Obradović-Ratković et al, 2020). Refugees are forced to cope with various challenges and traumas upon reaching their host destination. They have to learn and adapt to the legal system of the country of refuge, and are often denied some of their rights including acquiring citizenship, learn the local language, and often suffer from being separated from their social networks and family, sometimes suffering from the loss of family members or property and capital. Losing peace and security and going through uncertainty about their future, can create severe psychological damage (Sinclair, 2001; Alpaydin, 2017)
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