Autonomy of English teachers with refugee students in their classes

The purpose of this research was to investigate the autonomy of English teachers with refugee students in four different dimensions, which are teaching and assessment, school management, professional development and curriculum development. 121 English teachers working in state secondary schools in Ankara participated in the study. Data were collected through questionnaires and open ended questions. The results showed that in teaching and assessment and professional development participants had generally high autonomy. However, in school management and curriculum development their autonomy were lower. When compared to English teachers without refugee students, t-test results showed that overall autonomy of English teachers with refugee students in their class were lower. Furthermore, the results also showed that number of refugee students in the class did not affect the autonomy of teachers contrary to the expectations. Additionally, it was concluded that professional experience of teachers did not affect the autonomy of English teachers. In open ended questions teachers mainly stated that they could not select textbooks, even though they could use their autonomy in the amount of homework they gave, disciplining students and setting rules and norms for their classes. Moreover, majority believed that they were not involved in school management. Furthermore, most of the participants thought that they were not autonomous regarding the content of in-service professional development programmes, and they generally could not attend these programmes according to their needs. Finally, vast majority of the participants stated that they were not involved in curriculum designing process.