An investigation on the expectations and experiences of classroom teachers relating to the academic skills of asylum seeker children (The İstanbul case)

Although education is the fundamental right of aslyum seeker children, it has an important role in the adaptation of these children to the country they live in, in the development of their sense of belonging, in ensuring intercultural communication, socialization and protection from negative environment. In the education process of refugee children, teachers are one of the most important factors that play a role in supporting their physical and mental development. Teachers' positive expectations, assessment and support of the academic skills as well as the life skills of refugee students from various cultures has a strategic importance in the lives of these children. From this point of view, it was aimed to reveal the expectations and experiences of classroom teachers regarding the academic skills of refugee children. For this purpose, phenomenological research, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. Criterion sampling, one of the purposeful sampling method, was used in the study. According to the data obtained from the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of National Education, the opinions of 12 classroom teachers, who are the most refugee students in their class, were taken. The meaning that classroom teachers attach to the academic skills of asylum seeker children, their academic expectations from children and their experiences, problems and inadequacies while supporting their academic skills were collected through in-depth and individual interviews. Since there was no pre-determined code list, data analysis was started with integrative coding. The data collected from the interviews were subjected to a line by line or word by word content analysis. The related codes were collected under appropriate themes and direct quotations were given. As a result of the research, classroom teachers explained the lessons and the reasons that refugee children have the most difficulty, the academic, cultural and social reasons of their difficulties in lessons, their academic expectations from refugee children, their studies to increase the success of children, various problems affecting the academic achievement of children and teacher-child-family communication, refugee children. They explained their opinions about the situation they see themselves as sufficient in their education and their need for support, the support that can be made to increase the success of refugee children, the things done by the school administration and teachers in ensuring the success of these children, and the events they witnessed about the reasons why refugee children put their academic success on the second plan. These opinions of the participants are presented with direct quotations.