A comprehensive review and meta-analysis to identify the factors shaping teachers' attitudes toward refugee students in Turkey.

This study aims to comprehensively examine the challenges encountered by immigrant and refugee children in accessing and integrating into the educational system and to develop concrete policy and practice recommendations based on teachers’ perspectives. The research was conducted using a phenomenological design. While the population of the study consists of all primary and secondary school teachers working in schools across Kırşehir, the sample comprises 10 teachers working specifically at the primary and secondary levels in the city center of Kırşehir. The qualitative data collected were analyzed using the descriptive analysis method. According to the findings, the most significant barrier faced by immigrant and refugee children in accessing education is the language barrier. Other notable issues include the long distance between home and school, and some schools’ reluctance to admit refugee students. Discrimination and exclusion directed toward these children lead to psychological problems and diminished motivation to attend school. The lack of effective policies supporting integration is particularly striking; only one participant reported maintaining regular contact with parents. Advocacy and awareness practices are noted to assist students in adapting and improving their academic performance. Teachers expressed concern that clustering immigrant children into the same classrooms fosters marginalization and hinders cultural integration.

This study emerges from the borderlands—zones of epistemic marginalization where both knowledge and subjectivities are rendered peripheral. It positions itself against the epistemological imperialism of mainstream, positivist educational leadership research, which continues to colonize scholarly discourse through managerialist logics and methodological monism. At the same time, it draws from a literal and symbolic borderland: public schools in Türkiye's southern provinces where refugee students from Syria experience profound epistemic exclusion within national education systems. These schools are not only geographical peripheries, but also sites where hybrid identities and knowledge forms struggle for recognition. Framed through the lens of cognitive justice, the study interrogates how school leaders engage—or fail to engage—with the cultural and epistemological presence of refugee students. Drawing on a qualitative case study in Mersin, it employs critical realist thematic analysis to examine leadership responses to these borderland conditions. Three thematic strata are identified: (1) experiential practices shaped by institutional constraints, (2) inferential patterns that align with assimilationist discourses and perpetuate epistemicide, and (3) dispositional logics embedded in neoliberal and neoconservative governance regimes. Despite structural limitations, moments of critical reflexivity surface, revealing a nascent epistemic sensitivity among some school leaders. These moments suggest the possibility of reimagining school leadership as dialogical, decolonial, and grounded in epistemological plurality. By voicing from within the margins, this study challenges dominant paradigms and calls for an educational leadership that not only accommodates diversity but affirms the epistemic agency of those long positioned at the edges of knowing.

ABSTRACT This study examines the civil society engagement and active citizenship practices of refugee high school students in Türkiye, focusing on their leisure time as a key factor in their integration. Using an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach, the study sampled 276 students for the quantitative phase and 27 for the qualitative phase. Data were collected through an 87-item questionnaire and 43 semi-structured interviews, analysed via SPSS and content analysis, respectively. This direct engagement with students distinguishes the study from others that rely mostly on data from stakeholders. The findings reveal that many refugee students lack engagement in cultural or social activities, and work to support their families and spend much of their free time at home. Female students face constraints in their leisure time due to traditional gender roles, primarily helping with domestic chores, while male students are more actively involved in sports. Most have minimal political and NGO involvement.

The situation of refugee students with disabilities in the Turkish education system: an embedded case study

ABSTRACT This study investigated predictors of gifted identification among Syrian refugee students in Jordan, focusing on academic achievement, gender, and school context. A dataset comprising 13,598 students assessed using the Arabic version of the HOPE Teacher Rating Scale was analyzed. Logistic regression and random forest analyses examined the influence of GPA, gender, school stage (elementary, middle, secondary), and school location (in-camp and out-of-camp) on identification patterns. GPA emerged as a strong predictor, with higher GPA substantially increasing the likelihood of gifted identification. School location demonstrated a modest effect, as students in camp settings were less likely to be identified, reflecting structural inequities in educational provision. Middle school students were less likely to be identified compared to secondary students, while gender differences were not significant. Predictive modeling results should be interpreted with caution, as gifted identification was derived directly from the HOPE total score; models incorporating HOPE items closely mirrored the HOPE-based classification, whereas models using only demographic variables had limited discriminatory power. These findings underscore the importance of culturally validated, behaviorally anchored teacher rating tools in promoting equitable gifted identification in refugee education contexts and highlight the need for policies that reduce reliance on academic metrics alone.

This qualitative case study examines how Café Sem Troco, a rural public school near Brasília in Brazil’s Central West region, supported Warao Indigenous refugee students from Venezuela through translanguaging and trauma-informed, culturally sustaining pedagogy. Data were collected in 2024 and 2025 through five in-depth interviews with teachers, the school leader, and a Warao community leader; analysis of participant-generated photographs and short videos; and extensive participant follow-up. Guided by a critical, qualitative, and community-based research approach, we used thematic analysis to interpret interviews and visual artifacts. Findings identify three areas: educator responses to forced displacement; the schooling effects of poverty, food insecurity, and nutritional trauma; and acculturation pressures shaping students’ self-esteem. Educators built a multilingual, relational classroom where Warao, Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) coexisted. Translanguaging functioned as an emotional, cultural, and instructional foundation, as well as a social justice-based practice that affirmed students’ and families’ identities, reduced anxiety, and strengthened belonging. Daily practices such as community food gathering, oral storytelling, and collective care resisted assimilation and honored Warao epistemologies and funds of knowledge. This study advances scholarship on Indigenous education and educational responses to forced migration, trauma, and hunger. It provides recommendations for policies, practices, and processes in public education, and outlines directions for future research.

This comparative case study explores how two preservice teachers (PTs), working with recently arrived Afghan refugee students in a reading methods course, navigated and enacted critical translingual stances, despite the course’s absence of explicit translanguaging pedagogy. Framed by Critical Translingual Approach and Culturally Disruptive Pedagogy, this study analyzes the non-linear, situated development of two racially, ethnically, and linguistically different PTs’ ideological stances and pedagogical choices. Findings illustrate the tensions PTs experienced as they sought to recognize and affirm their students’ full linguistic and cultural repertoires while contending with normative language ideologies, conflicting expectations, and narrow views of literacy. The study highlights the importance of critical joy, relationship building, and oral storytelling as literacy practices, while also pointing to the need for deeper theoretical and experiential preparation in teacher education. We end with a call for teacher educators to embed justice-oriented approaches across the curriculum and to create and sustain ruptures that invite the confrontation of whiteness.

Background: This qualitative post-program evaluation study explored the impact of a basic life-saving skills program on refugee students and teachers from the Rohingya Education Centre in Kuantan, Pahang. Methods: A total of 31 refugee children aged 5–14 years and six teachers participated in focus group discussions to examine knowledge gained, confidence development, and preparedness to respond to life-threatening situations. Results: Thematic analysis, guided by Braun and Clarke’s six-step framework, generated 11 overarching themes, reflecting experiential learning, emotional responses, confidence development, preparedness, and program acceptance. Teachers corroborated student findings, observing improvements in knowledge, skill application, and confidence. Conclusion: Findings suggest that culturally and age-appropriate life-saving skills education can significantly enhance refugee children’s emergency response readiness and promote teacher-facilitated sustainability of safety education. Implications for curriculum integration and continued safety training in refugee education contexts are discussed.

Vocational education and training are essential for the integration of refugee youth into Greek society. Therefore, it seems that there is an urgent need for the Greek Ministry of Education and Religion and for the Ministry of Labour (herewith, Greek Ministries of Education and Labour) to redesign and adapt their strategies and practices to address the specific learning needs of refugee youth. The aim of this study is to explore the types of policies that the Ministries of Education and Labour should design, reform, and implement to increase the number of students attending vocational education and training in Greece. The researchers adopted a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. Ten participants took part in the study: seven Refugee Education Coordinators based in camps across Greece, two experts from the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), and one academic specializing in adult education and serving as an EPALE Ambassador. The findings indicate that both Ministries of Education and Labour need to collaborate more closely in redesigning and implementing targeted policies for refugee students. These should include expanding reception classes in EPAS (vocational school) and EPAL (vocational high school) schools, reducing bureaucratic procedures, ensuring adequate staffing with trained teachers, and adopting simpler administrative processes.

ABSTRACT Education is an important factor that both forces and guides refugees’ decision-making about their migrations. In this article, we explore the complex interplay between education, migration, and conflict. To do so, we bring together multiple research projects to analyze 121 interviews that we conducted with 88 participants: 15 Syrian refugee students and 73 Syrian and Lebanese teachers of refugees. We examine how Syrian refugee students and teachers experience and explain migration decisions and the connection between those decisions and their views of and experiences with education and with conflict. We analyze how teachers and students understand and experience the structures and content of schooling and show how these structures and content interact with conflict and migration dynamics. We find that these educational experiences both shape and are shaped by their experiences with conflict, their visions for the future, and their migration decision-making.

ABSTRACT Turkiye hosts over 3.4 million refugees, yet monolingual educational policies systematically marginalise non-Turkish speakers through institutional practices and peer interactions that delegitimise minoritised languages. This study examines multimodal translanguaging pedagogy as a transformative approach addressing these exclusionary structures. Through a five-week qualitative case study with 21 third-grade students (17 Turkish monolinguals, 4 multilingual refugees), we analysed how multimodal translanguaging – integrating visual, embodied, and multilingual meaning-making – challenged linguistic hierarchies while expanding learning possibilities. Findings reveal three patterns structuring exclusion: differential treatment of academic performance based on student background, peer and institutional monitoring of language use, and hierarchical valuations privileging European over minoritised languages. Multimodal translanguaging functioned as epistemological expansion – fundamentally broadening what counts as legitimate knowledge production – through validating diverse epistemologies, redistributing authority, and developing metalinguistic awareness. Outcomes included 75% reduction in refugee students’ absenteeism, significant increases in participation, and shifts in Turkish students’ language attitudes. However, transformations remained limited to English lessons, revealing tensions between individual teacher innovation and broader institutional structures. This study contributes to translanguaging scholarship by demonstrating how multimodal affordances create alternative participation pathways, examining mechanisms of linguistic exclusion in refugee education, and analysing relationships between classroom-level change and institutional constraints.

ABSTRACT With increasing global forced migration and Australia’s commitments to humanitarianism, the current study explores how refugee resettlement and education policies in Australia are reflected in, or reconfigured through, school-level practices to foster inclusive, empowering education or reproduce structural disadvantages. The authors employed a hybrid theoretical lens that combines two theoretical perspectives to guide this research. First, Vidovich’s policy cycle framework, which is rooted in the policy sociology model developed by Stephen J. Ball. Second, a Freirean perspective. Guided by this integrative framework, the current study used a qualitative interpretive approach in analysing documents related to national resettlement and education policies, as well as curriculum frameworks. Peer-reviewed literature was used to inform and contextualise the analytical interpretation of policy texts. The findings show that national discourse promotes inclusion. However, policy texts and school practices often reflect assimilationist logics that disadvantage refugee students, though transformative spaces persist. Theoretically, this study extends Vidovich’s model by integrating Freirean principles of agency, voice, and justice – offering a dual lens to assess policy coherence and ideological intent. It calls for reimagining refugee education through dialogical, emancipatory practices and advances a framework for future research to engage more equitably with refugee students’ lived realities and aspirations.

ABSTRACT Norway and Iceland, historically perceived as culturally homogeneous societies, are experiencing increasing diversity in upper-secondary schools due to global migration. Although both countries promote inclusive and democratic education policies, migrant and refugee students are often positioned through national, linguistic, and normative frameworks of inclusion. This paper examines how teachers can move beyond such frameworks by reimagining inclusion as a relational and ethical pedagogical process. Drawing on Hannah Arendt's concept of visiting and critical global citizenship education (GCE), the study explores the experiences of seven upper-secondary teachers in Iceland and Norway who participated in the research and development project Irregular Processes of Inclusion and Citizenship (I-PIC). In the project teachers cocreated visual and participatory pedagogical practices inspired by photovoice methods. Based on reflective interviews, the analysis shows how teachers navigated tensions between standardised educational demands and their commitments to inclusion. Students' photographs functioned as reflexive pedagogical tools that enabled teachers to position themselves as visitors in students' worlds, fostering trust and subjectification resulting in more relational and ethical approach to inclusion for migrant and refugee students.

This article presents a case study of the Parent Student Resident Organization (PSRO), a diverse coalition of refugee students and parents in San Diego's City Heights neighborhood, and its role in advancing educational equity in San Diego Unified School District. In analyzing how the PSRO's intergenerational, feminist and cultural humility inspired organizing model empowered diverse refugee families to leverage California's Local Control Funding Formula to demand change, it retheorizes refugee students and parents as knowledgeable and competent educational advocates and suggests promising practices for teachers, school leaders, and community organizers committed to supporting refugee students and improving urban schools.

This study examines the evolution of educational policies for immigrant and refugee students in Turkey between 2010 and 2025 through a qualitative document analysis of Ministry of National Education (MoNE) policy texts. The analysis reveals significant progress in guaranteeing access to education, especially following the influx of Syrian refugees, but also highlights persistent challenges related to policy implementation, assimilationist tendencies, and the temporality framing of refugee education. While access is broadly secured, deeper aspects of inclusive education—such as cultural recognition, multilingual support, and systemic equity—remain underdeveloped. The study situates these findings within critical policy analysis, integration theory, and inclusive education frameworks, emphasizing the gap between discursive commitments and operational realities. The paper concludes by recommending a shift toward long-term, rights-based inclusion strategies, stronger monitoring mechanisms, enhanced teacher training, and greater community engagement to foster equitable educational opportunities for refugee students in Turkey.

The sexual health literacy of young refugees has not been investigated in detail due to the lack of a sufficient assessment tool in the literature. This study aims to perform validity and reliability analysis of the Arabic version of the Sexual Health Literacy Scale (SHLS) in a sample consisting of young Syrian refugee university students. This methodological study was conducted in December 2023 with 191 young Syrian refugee students at a university in XXX, XXX. Content validity of the scale was assessed in three stages: translation, back translation, and cultural adaptation. Besides, construct validity was evaluated with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and internal consistency reliability with Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient and total item correlation. CFA demonstrated that the Arabic version of the SHLS had two sub-dimensions and 16 items. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was 0.85, indicating the scale was reliable. Male participants studying in health-related departments, aware of sexual health literacy, educated on sexual health, and confident in their knowledge scored significantly higher on the scale. This is the first study investigating the SHLS’s validity and reliability in young refugees. Given its acceptable validity and reliability, further research is needed in diverse, broader samples to clarify its applicability in different settings.

Global refugee displacement has risen sharply in recent years, with children comprising nearly half of all refugees worldwide. In Australia, despite strong policy commitments to equity and multiculturalism, refugee-background students in secondary schools continue to face systemic barriers such as linguistic marginalization, deficit-based discourses, and cultural deindividualization.This study examines how deindividualization manifests within inclusive education practices and explores how learning with and from refugee students can foster more relational and transformative models of inclusion. This study addresses the research question: How can refugee-background students and educators collaboratively co-construct inclusive educational practices that resist deindividualization and cultivate relational, transformative learning?Using a systematic literature review guided by the PRISMA 2020 framework, eighteen peer-reviewed studies (2020–2025) were thematically analysed through the lenses of critical pedagogy, recognition theory, and transformative learning. Findings reveal ongoing tensions between inclusive policy rhetoric and classroom realities. Three interrelated themes emerged: (1) experiences of deindividualization and “othering,” (2) relational inclusion grounded in empathy, agency, and co-learning, and (3) transformative learning as a pedagogical and institutional process. Creative and embodied practices—such as arts-based learning and sport—were identified as powerful catalysts for belonging, identity affirmation, and social connection.The study concludes that genuine inclusion demands a systemic and ethical reorientation of education—from teaching refugees to learning with refugees. It calls for participatory, mixed-method research and culturally sustaining pedagogies that bridge policy and practice, positioning schools as transformative spaces of empathy, recognition, and shared humanity.

It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article, Koliandri I. and Datsogianni A. (2025), ‘’Trauma-informed educational practices for war-affected refugee students in Greece and Cyprus: a literature review’’, Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 255–267. Link to the cited article., incorrectly listed author Anastasia Datsogianni’s affiliation.This has now been amended from Department of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, Unicaf University, Larnaca, Cyprus, to School of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, Unicaf, Larnaca, Cyprus.The publisher kindly reminds authors to ensure that author affiliation details are provided correctly at the time of submission and carefully confirmed during the article proofing stage.

Abstract The complexity surrounding refugee education, grappling with learners' inadequate literacy skills due to interrupted schooling, the trauma of familial loss and discrimination, is indelible. Thus, teachers teaching refugee students employ diverse techniques and strategies to facilitate better learning. This study delves into the professional and teaching experiences of four novice instructors from Bangladesh, providing remote instruction to pre‐university displaced students in various camps in Bangladesh, Kenya and Jordan. Through a narrative inquiry approach, it investigates various dynamics of remote teaching that the instructors experienced in the refugee context. The thematic analysis of the instructors' logs, stories, and anecdotes showcases how tailored course contents and strategies were used to teach these students and the challenges educators faced in implementing the teaching strategies they explored in their teacher training sessions while instructing displaced students remotely. The close examination of the findings addresses valuable perspectives and insights on the broader teaching landscape of these unique circumstances, which not only help to address pedagogic implications for refugee students in their remote learning context but also add new perspectives to the teacher training programs designed for refugee education and development.