Session Information
07 SES 06 A, Inclusion of Newcomers and Refugees Part 2
Paper Session continued from 07 SES 04 A, to be continued in 07 SES 09 A
Contribution
For a long time, individuals residing in different countries have been migrating to especially United States of America, European Union countries and Turkey due to different reasons. In the records of the UNCHR (2018) and UNICEF (2014) many teachers now have refugees or asylum-seekers in their classroom. Teaching newcomers often comes with specific needs relating to language acquisition and adaptation to a new culture and environment. Some refugee children may suffer from stress or trauma preventing them from participating fully in school activities, and requiring specific support.
Educational services that are offered to school-aged refugees are often limited to primary education (McCarthy &Vickers, 2012). As stated by Zehr (2018), most of the refugee students are isolated by anti-immigrant discourses and most of them have experiences that can result in psychological trauma. Many refugee students who are enrolled in the schools in the United States and in European Union countries lack formal education in their home country. Unique difficulties related to ordinary secondary education structure and being a refugee adolescent create some obstacles in education processes (Drake, 2017). In addition, teacher training courses and other vocational trainings in the refugee camps are limited (McCarthy&Vickers, 2012), and the teachers are not sufficiently equipped to deal with refugee pupils' behavioral problems and language deficiencies (Hur & Suh, 2018). Teachers often face with resistant behaviors of refugee students (Gorski, 2012). The teachers should make a balance between fulfilling the demands of the needs of the students from different cultures and political expectations (Drake, 2017), know cultures, experiences and education systems of those students (Hur&Suh, 2018), and have knowledge, skills and attitudes related to diversity management (Kim, 2019).
Generally speaking, in the USA, EU countries and Turkey, urban schools that are densely immigrated have a multicultural character. For instance, in the USA (Brown, 2003), teachers made emphasis on the importance of establishing a responsive relationship with the students, and the importance of gaining knowledge about culturally rooted communication styles of their students. In the Netherlands (Wubbels, den Brok, Veldman, Brekelmans & van Tartwijk, 2006), according to the teachers working in the multicultural schools, teaching practice in these schools requires skills such as creating a positive teacher-student relationship, managing and monitoring students’ behaviors and improving the students’ attention and enthusiasm. Moreover, the teachers should be aware of and interested in the cultural background of their students and its impact on student behavior.
Refugee students also have problems in academic achievement. Potochnick (2018) stated that more than 10% of the students who were born in foreign countries discontinue their education and have lower academic achievement when compared with the other students. Refugee students' learning experiences are different from those of other students. The teachers should be supported professionally especially in terms of meeting new refugee students. Short-term international experiences should be provided for the teachers to recognize the culture, experiences and education systems of refugee students (Hur & Suh, 2018).
Considering the lack of instruments based on the cross-cultural classroom management, and competencies and indicators for teachers in the literature, it is obvious that there is a need of designing and developing such competencies and indicators that will help teachers to manage their teaching practices effectively by taking into account the multidimensional nature of classroom management. It is expected that such a tool could promote research that will contribute to understanding the nature of the behaviors displayed by the teachers against the students from different backgrounds. Therefore, the present study aims at designing and developing a valid and reliable culturally responsive classroom management competencies and indicators for the teachers working with the students from different cultural backgrounds.
Method
Due to the fact that the aim of this study is to determine “competencies related to culturally responsive classroom management” which are necessary for the teachers working in multicultural schools and based on knowledge-skill-attitude and competencies that the teachers should gain, this study is designed with basic qualitative research design which is one of the qualitative research methods. In basic qualitative studies, the data is collected by making observation, document analysis and interview. In addition to that, the situations that will be observed, the questions which will be asked and the documents that will be analyzed depend on theoretical framework of the study (Merriam, 2013). Based on the aim of the current study, document analysis and interview method will be used in this study. Sampling The focus group will be held with 20 people, 15 of whom are working in the public schools and 5 of them being principals in Gaziantep, Ankara and Antakya where Syrian students are mostly taking education. In the study, snowball sampling method which is a method of purposive sampling will be used in order to determine the teachers who are teaching to refugee students and facing difficulty in adapting to education process. Data Collection Tool The data will be gathered in two stages. In the first stage, the data will be collected by using a semi-structured interview form. While developing the interview forms, firstly, the relevant literature will be reviewed and the opinions of the faculty members who are specialized in multicultural education and intercultural communication will be taken. The interview form will be sent for the expert opinion and a pilot interview will be conducted with a volunteer teacher before the actual application. In the second stage, based on the analysis of the data that will be gathered through interviews culturally responsive classroom management competencies will be transformed into proficiency based on perceptional and numerical indicators for the teachers by using the Functional Mapping Method. Data Analysis During the analysis of data obtained through document analysis and interview, as one of the content analysis method ‘‘Thematic Analysis’’ (Braun and Clarke, 2006) will be used. The codes obtained from the relevant literature and interviews will be mapped under certain themes. The themes will be transformed into “main competencies” and the codes will be transformed into “sub-competencies”. The indicators will be developed based on the evidences for sub-competences. Content validity will be determined by applying expert opinions for main competences, sub-competencies and indicators.
Expected Outcomes
In this study, it is expected that awareness of the teachers and education principals will be increased by identifying teachers' culturally responsive classroom management skills in order to help refugee students to adapt to the education system in schools where students from different cultures take education. Although there are similarities among generic teacher competencies, it is seen that there is a difference in competencies in multicultural schools. This study will emphasize different dimensions of education and training by showing that normal schools and multicultural schools have different educational cultures. Instead of focusing only on generic teacher competencies in teacher training programs, it is very important to focus on culturally responsive classroom management, teaching process and practices.
References
Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77- 101. doi10.1191/1478088706qp063oa Brown, D.F. (2003). Urban teachers’ use of culturally responsive management strategies. Theory into Practice. 42(4), 277-282. Drake, K. (2017). Competing purposes of education: The case of underschooled immigrant students. J Educ Change, 18, 337– 363. Gorski, P. C. (2012). Instructional, institutional, and sociopolitical challenges of teaching multicultural teacher education courses. The Teacher Educator, 47: 216– 235. Hur, J. W. and Suh, S. (2018). Community–university partnerships in practice: development of welcoming learning environments for new immigrants. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 22 (3), 45- 67. Kim, M. J. (2019). Multicultural education for young children through information books. Asia-pacific journal of research in early childhood education, 13 (1), 23- 45. McCarthy, F. E. (Ed.) and Vickers, M. H. (Ed.). (2012). Refugee and immigrant students achieving equity in education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc. Merriam, S. B ( 2013). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation 3rd Edition . Jossey-Bass; USA. Potochnick, S. (2018). The academic adaptation of immigrant students with interrupted schooling. American Educational Research Journal, 55 (4), 859- 892. UNCHHR (2018). Teaching about refugees. Retrieved from: https://www.unhcr.org/teaching-about-refugees.html#including UNICEF (2014). Regional study: Curriculum, accreditation and certification for Syrian children in Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Wubbels, Th.; Brekelmans, M.; den Brok, P.; van Tartwijk, J. (2006). An interpersonal perspective on classroom management in secondary classrooms in the Netherlands. Inc. Zehr, M. A. (2018). Celebrating the voices of immigrant students. Education Digest, 83 (8), 20- 25.
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