Social, cultural and economic integration of Syrian urban refugees (Example of Küçükçekmece district)

Along with the mass migration as a result of the social changes caused by the civil war in Syria, refugees and integration began to take place among current issues in Turkey. This mobility, which has a unique characteristic in terms of Turkey's history of migration, has brought with it a new immigration experience. The debate on how this experience is lived through and how it will be lived in the future generally intensifies on two axes; one of them is that the present identity and historical ties can contribute positively to the integration of Syrians into Turkish society and this mobility will provide an opportunity for economic growth as well as contributing to social wealth and diversity from a sociological perspective. Second is that the ethnic diversity, class status and the legal and political experience of population coming to Turkey will lead to some difficulties in course of their integration into Turkish society. The common point of both views is the necessity of integration policies. This study focuses on the situation of refugee integration in urban living spaces; it seeks to find out how the integration of Syrians into the Turkish society reflects in social, cultural and economic aspects. In addition, the impact of ethnic and religious identity on integration has been examined and integration differences between Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish Syrian groups have been the subject of the study. Findings on the social, cultural and economic integration of the Syrian urban refugees living in the Küçükçekmece district of Istanbul are based on a mixed method research theoretically and methodologically. The social, cultural and economic indicators of refugee integration determined by the literature review were narrowed for the questionnaire and interview forms and converted into question format and applied in the field. As a result of this study, it is found out that Syrian urban refugees have ethnic and religious factors that facilitate their social and cultural integration into Turkish society, while factors such as cheap labor, low income and lack of women's employment pose difficulties in economic integration. It is also found that there are deficiencies in social integration as far as the social bridges are concerned. In addition to this, it is predicted that the lack of interactiveness in the integration of the Syrian urban refugees will pose one of the main obstacles in front of the successful integration of Syrian refugees in Turkey in the future.