The experience of foreign students at International Anatolian Imam Hatip High Schools (IAIHHS) and the change in their perceptions and understandings of religion and religiositiy

International Anatolian Imam Hatip High School (IAIHHS) is a type of vocational high school with a religious program established by the Turkish Religious Foundation in cooperation with the Ministry of National Education General Directorate of Religious Education. This research reveals the experiences of foreign students who graduated from IAIHHS and the transformation that came up with these experiences in their perception and understanding of religion and religiosity. The phenomenological research method was chosen to carry out this qualitative research, and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with sixteen (IAIHHS) graduates as deemed by the method. Interviews were conducted, in which we asked questions that would enable us to describe the basic notion of the (IAIHHS) experience and to understand the effect of this experience on the participants' perception and understanding of religion and religiosity per the research method. Information related to being aware of the school system, the decision process, coming to the school, and first impressions about the physical environment and conditions in the school, social environment relationships, the provided education and the content of the curriculum were obtained from the answers collected from the interviewees. As a result of the research, a description - and definition - of the notion of the (IAIHHS) experience was developed, and the variations in the perception and understanding of the participants towards religion and religiosity were interpreted through the five-dimensional typology of religiousness. In conclusion, it was determined that the interviewees experienced the most changes in religious influences and religious knowledge from the dimensions of religiosity, and it was resolved that the variation in religion and religiousness perceptions and understandings could best be explained from the perspective of socialization theory in this regard.