Turkey has been pursuing educational inclusion for especially Syrian children with the support of a series of European Union funded projects. While refugee children begin primary school in regular classes with citizen children, adaptation classes take place at the third-grade level and target those students who could not develop sufficient Turkish skills in their first two years at school. For a year in third grade, such refugee students are put in a separate classroom and receive intensive training in Turkish as a second language.

Two adaptation classes over the course of two school semesters were followed through weekly, full-day classroom observations. Teachers and students were interviewed, and focus group discussions with the students’ caregivers were conducted. 

The project had the following specific objectives: 

(a) to contribute to the global discussion on barriers to social inclusion within refugee education. On a national scale, inform policymaking in Turkey, 

(b) to acquire new knowledge on how refugee communities make sense of and respond to institutional measures taken in the name of educational inclusion, particularly with regards to language instruction, 

(c) to develop a collaborative and empowering research methodology when working with refugees.