Investigating Attitudes towards Refugee Students based on Several Variables: Revised Version of Refugee Student Attitude Scale

SAKARYA UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF EDUCATION Original Research Received: 12.02.2019 Published: 15.12.2019 Doi:10.19126/suje.526197 Accepted: 24.09.2019 December 2019 • 9(3) • 476-494 Investigating Attitudes towards Refugee Students based on Several Variables: Revised Version of Refugee Student Attitude Scale* Ragıp TERZİ** Ahmet GÖÇEN*** Bilal ALTUN**** Abstract. The immigration movement sometimes causes a sudden demographic complexity for countries and then leads to the development and implementation of urgent public policies. The most important one of urgent policy areas in the long term is education. In countries, especially in case of foreign migration, international aid organizations provide food, shelter, heating, and so on at the first place, and then aim to ensure linguistic, cultural, and social cohesion of migrants. At this stage, the contribution of hosting teachers and school administrators to attitudes towards migrants and inclusive education policies is a key to the efficient functioning of the process. In this study, attitudes towards refugee students of teachers in Sanliurfa, one of Turkey's most populated-refugee cities, is investigated based on several variables. For the purpose, Refugee Student Attitude Scale (RSAS), developed by Sağlam and Kanbur (2017), was updated via EFA and CFA analyzes and then analyzed by MANOVA. It was found that attitudes of young female teachers towards “communication” and “adaptation” were higher than male teachers; in contrast, male teachers teaching for long years were better in their “communication” and “competency” attitudes than female teachers. Furthermore, teachers with many years of teaching experience who have refugee students in their class are higher in “communication” and “adaptation” attitudes. Keywords: Migration Policy, Teacher Attitudes, Refugee Education, Inclusive Education. * This study was supported by the European Union Education and Youth Programs Center Erasmus+ Project, entitled “The Right of Education of Refugees and A Little Empathy” and numbered 2018-1-TR01-KA229060961_1 of Şanlıurfa Hattat Behçet Arabi Imam Hatip Secondary School. The European Commission and the National Agency of Turkey can not be held responsible for the opinions expressed in this study. ** Orcid id: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3976-5054, Asst. Prof. Dr., Harran University, School of Education, *** Orcid id: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9376-2084, Asst. Prof. Dr., Harran University, School of Education, **** Orcid id: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3535-9182, Teacher, Ministry of National Education, Cilt / Volume : * • Sayı / Issue : * • Ay / Month 20** 476 Investigating Attitudes towards Refugee Students based on Several Variables: Revised Version of Refugee … 1. INTRODUCTION Migration generally involves the physical displacement of societies or groups of people for economic, cultural and political reasons. Migration causes significant changes in the lives of migrants within the scope of social, cultural, and economic impacts. If the migration process is not managed effectively in terms of its stakeholders and related elements, it may have negative effects not only on the migrants, but also on the order and accepted structure of the migrated place. Migrations can be categorized as “obligatory and voluntary” according to the reasons of those who migrate, “permanent and temporary” according to the length of stay at the place of migration, and “internal and external” according to the direction of migration (Çatalbaş & Yarar, 2015). Although the concepts of migrant or immigrant are generally used in the definition of migration, the concept of refugee used in this study is also important for a better understanding of the issue. According to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951), refugee is the person who can not or does not want to return his/her homeland due to fear of violence and persecution stemming from his/her race, religion, nationality, belonging to a certain social group or political attitude. Since the declaration of the Republic, migration movements in Turkey in general have occured in the form of internal migration and urbanization apart from population exchange among the countries. Carrying out open-door policy with the emergence of conflict in Syria, Turkey faced a migration flow with 3.5 million people into the country, and in some provinces like Şanlıurfa and İstanbul, about half a million Syrian citizens began to live. This rapidly developing situation has affected the economic structure of the migrated region and caused major problems in school capacities and management of educational resources. When migrant groups are evaluated, the most affected members are the children at the age of schooling. For children and families who experience forced migration, the loss of home and the departure from their own country means the destruction of their dreams; thus, the migration process requires people to forget the past and get used to their new life (Miserez-Willday, 1988). The education of people who leave their homeland and take refuge in another region or country upon war or internal conflicts becomes more complicated (Yavuz & Mızrak, 2016). On the other hand, under prospective or urgent action-based educational policies, education can serve as a compensatory tool for refugees by reducing uncertainty and increasing self esteem. Aside that, community support, teacher qualifications, educational tools and management structure can systemically affect refugees’ educational attainments (Alpaydın, 2017). It is important to note that the education provided to refugees should be high quality and have meaningful value for them, otherwise the desired attainments will not be achieved (DrydenPeterson, 2011). For policymakers, studies on attitudes, problems and views of students and teachers in the literature concerning migration may contribute significantly to the implementations aimed at reducing the negative impact of migration in education. Çoşkun and Emin 477 Sakarya University Journal of Education Ragıp TERZİ, Ahmet GÖÇEN, Bilal ALTUN (2016) stated that Syrian students experience adaptation problems in schools and the reluctance of some administrators to register Syrian children in schools, the negative attitudes and behaviors such as rejection by teachers, students and parents, exclusion, marginalization and peer bullying in the school also make the adaptation process difficult. Kardeş and Akman (2018) at the end of their study stated that refugee children have language problems and adaptation problems. Within an effective management and policy program against the problems of refugee students, these authors suggested solutions such as increasing these children's participation in pre-school education, regulation of the class environment, increased family participation, attention to language education, and resolution of school adaptation problems through psychological and guidance services. Th (...truncated)