Participation of Syrian refugee parents in the education process of primary school-age children in Turkey

This research is a qualitative study conducted to reveal the factors affecting family participation of Syrian refugee parents in education. The research has been carried out with a study group consisting of 25 Syrian parents living in Şahinbey and Şehitkamil districts in Gaziantep. In order to provide an in-depth and detailed understanding of the research, a criterion-oriented study group is selected for the phenomenological design of this purposeful study. Moreover, to reach various opinions, Syrian parents who have at least one child continuing their education in Turkish public primary schools and who are at different socio-economic and educational levels have been reached. During the research process, the researcher has used two forms: a personal-information form and a semi-structured interview form to reveal the views of the Syrian parents in depth. Content analysis has been used in the analysis of the obtained data. The emerging findings of the research have been grouped under 6 themes. According to the findings obtained as a result of the research, it is concluded that the factors affecting the participation of Syrian refugee parents in education are lingual, socio-economic, psychological, political & ideological, religious, cultural, and finally the education level of parents. It has been determined that all factors affect each other and in turn affect the participation of the Syrian family in their children's education. Although the educational, socio-economic, cultural and lingual levels of Syrian parents are different, it has been observed that all parents give a great importance to parents' participation in their primary school children's learning process. Based on the research findings, suggestions have been made to increase the participation of Syrian parents in their primary schoolers' education.