IMPROVING TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS REFUGEE STUDENTS

Abstract

In a classroom environment where refugee students are present, teachers' attitudes towards these students are considered to be one of the important key factors affecting the students' adaptation process to the education system and the society in which they live. Based on this important factor, the aim of the study was to improve teacher attitudes with the "Attitude Improvement Module towards Refugee Students" designed by the researchers and to contribute to professional development studies on the subject by taking teachers' views about the module. In the research process, an attitude scale was used to measure teachers' attitudes towards these students, covering the dimensions of communication, harmony and proficiency, it was applied to the teachers in the experimental and control groups before and after the module and the attitudes of the teachers before and after the module were analyzed. After the analyses, teachers' views were sought regarding the results. As a result of the quantitative analyses conducted in this mixed-method research, a decrease was observed in the arithmetic average of the communication and adaptation dimensions, while an increase was observed in the arithmetic average of proficiency in the dimension. According to the qualitative analysis, it was revealed that teachers had feelings such as "prejudices, inability to accept refugees, language problems" towards refugee students, but after the module was implemented, their feelings, such as "gaining awareness and empathic approach in refugee education", improved. Based on the findings, it is recommended to develop policies aimed at nurturing the emotional aspects of teachers as well as their proficiency in improving their attitudes towards refugee students. Keywords: refugee student education, improvement of teacher attitudes, mixed methods, exploratory sequential designs