A study on the sociocultural integration of Syrians under temporary protection and Turkish society's attitudes towards Syrians: The cases of Istanbul and Kahramanmaraş

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the sociocultural integration of Syrians who are under temporary protection in Turkey and the attitudes of the locals (Turkish) toward Syrians in the context of life satisfaction and perceived social support. In this process, it was aimed to examine whether perceived social support and life satisfaction were related to the sociocultural integration of Syrians and the attitudes of the locals toward Syrians and whether these variables affected each other. In this quantitative study, descriptive, correlational, and explanatory research designs were used together in line with the objective. The population of the study included the local people and Syrians under temporary protection living in the districts of Fatih and Dulkadiroğlu. The sample of the study consisted of 426 participants representing the locals and 417 representing the Syrians. Data were collected using a personal information form, the Life Satisfaction Scale, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support administered to all participants, the Revised Sociocultural Adaptation Scale (SCAS-R) for Syrians administered only to the Syrian participants, and the Scale of Attitudes toward Syrians administered only to the participants from the local population. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 25.0 program. Independent-samples t-tests were used to compare two independent groups, while one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare more than two independent groups. Correlation analyses were conducted to test the relationships between numeric variables. The following results are worth noting: the mean Scale of Attitudes toward Syrians score of the participants from the local population was 51.29. The life satisfaction levels of the Syrian participants (15.28) were higher than the life satisfaction levels of the participants from the local population (11.80). The participants from the local population had higher levels of perceived social support (73.44) than the Syrian participants (53.16). The mean Sociocultural Integration Scale for Syrians score of the Syrian participants was 71.50. According to the results of the analyses, there were positive and statistically significant relationships between the perceived social support levels and life satisfaction levels of the locals, between the life satisfaction levels of the locals and their attitudes toward Syrians, between the perceived social support levels of the Syrians and their levels of sociocultural integration, between the perceived social support levels and life satisfaction levels of the Syrians, and between the life satisfaction levels of the Syrians and their sociocultural integration. No statistically significant relationship was found between the perceived social support levels of the locals and their attitudes toward Syrians.