Social justice (SJ) leadership for refugee students has been a globally alluring topic due to school principals’ potential for huge effects on eradicating inequities in education (Khalifa, Gooden, & Davis, 2016; Örücü, Arar, & Mahfouz, 2021). Given that school principals are in a key position in promoting SJ in education, a limited but rising literature on SJ leadership has illustrated the worldviews and directions of social justice-focused values, successful leadership strategies, obstacles to school equality, and positive results accomplished by valiant actions (Arar, Beycioglu, & Oplatka, 2017; Theoharis, 2007). Even though a wide range of studies on SJ leadership has been done so far, there is a limited number of studies analyzing SJ leadership practices of school principals towards refugees in education (Brooks, Normore, & Wilkinson, 2017; Norberg & Gross, 2018). Accordingly, the subject needs to be researched more deeply especially in different contexts.

SJ leadership basically points to dealing with marginalization in schools. SJ leaders thereby place race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and other marginalizing situations at the center of their leadership practices and visions. Accordingly, the fact that they value SJ in education is of vital importance for boosting educational outcomes, appreciating discrimination, and being aware of inequalities towards marginalized groups in society (Theoharis, 2007). Also, SJ leaders create a belonging culture, increase student success thanks to implementing a better curriculum and try to integrate all students; and accordingly get over inequalities (Zembylas & Iasonos, 2016).  Even though achieving equality in education is a big step towards creating a just society with different groups (Arar, Beycioglu, & Oplatka, 2017),  to achieve a just society is not so easy for every country including culturally, socially or ethnically different groups (Chiu & Walker, 2007).

As one of the countries where different groups live, Turkey hosted the highest number of Syrian refugees with over 3.5 million by 2019  (UNHCR, 2019).  With a significant step in integrating Syrian children into Turkish public schools where locals get educated in 2016, Turkish public schools have been officially open to all Syrian children both in the primary and secondary levels. Even though Syrian refugees have their basic right to access to education by 2016 through domestic laws, an important problem can be derived from the principals to manage a school with refugees due to cultural and linguistic diversity (Lopez, 2003). The literature on Syrian refugees’ education in Turkey mostly refers to multi-cultural nation and inclusive education (Bircan & Sunata, 2015; Gümüş, Kurnaz, Eşici, & Gümüş, 2020), and SJ leadership in the context of Syrian refugees is an underresearched subject (Arar, Beycioglu, & Oplatka, 2017; Arar, Ogden, & Beycioglu, 2019). Based on the fact that there is a gap in the research of SJ leadership in the context of Syrian refugees in the Turkish education system, to comprehend and determine the issues surrounding the education of refugees, the study aims to explore school teachers’ perceptions in Turkish secondary schools about school managers’ SJ leadership in the context of education of Syrian refugees. The results of the study are expected to provide an opinion about SJ leadership in the Turkish education system to policy-makers, school principals, and practitioners in the field. Accordingly, the perceptions of teachers in secondary schools on how SJ is perceived and applied by the school managers will be discussed based on three themes: (1) Inclusive Perspective, (2) Limited Social Justice, and (3) Holistic leaders.  

This study was carried out with a qualitative research approach including a phenomenological design to find out the perceptions of teachers in Turkish secondary schools on SJ leadership of school principals. The qualitative research approach allows researchers to focus on their subjects within the abundance of content from rich aspects without any generalization (Cresswell, 2012;). The participants of the study are teachers working in secondary schools in three different cities of Turkey with Syrian students. Participants were selected by the maximum sampling method according to gender, seniority, and branch. A semi-structured interview form was developed by the researchers to collect the data. The interview form includes five main questions and five follow-up questions to determine the perceptions of teachers working in secondary schools about the SJ leadership of school principals. In this process, two field experts’ feedback was taken, and accordingly, the necessary revision was done. Then, a pilot interview was done with a volunteer teacher. As a result of the pilot application, it was decided that all the questions in the interview form were understandable, and the interviews were conducted. The data of the research were gathered during the fall academic term of 2021-2022 through semi-structured interviews. The data were triangulated through semi-structured interviews, focus group meetings and field notes to provide consistency and credibility. Before starting the study, the researchers consulted the university Institutional Review Board (IRB) so that they could study a subject with human subjects, and the study was confirmed. Interviews with the participants lasted an average of 40 minutes. During the interviews, the researchers transcribed the recordings and took field notes. As for analysis, the thematic analysis technique was used and three steps were followed by the researchers manually as exploring the general sense, (en)coding the data (Saldaña, 2009), and identifying the themes (Creswell, 2012). The analysis done by two more experts contributed to the reliability as credibility, conformability and reliability can be set through the member check process (Maxwell, 2009). Triangulation was also applied by discussing the alternative interpretations of the collected data with two experts in the relevant field. Therefore, multiple triangulation was used in the current study to expand its credibility (Creswell, 2012). The analysis resulted in three themes: (i) inclusive perspective, (ii) limited social justice, (iii) holistic leaders.

The results of the research exhibit that almost all the participants have an inclusive perspective to differences among students in their classes, whereas they think that SJ applications are inadequate and more needs to be done by the principals. Most of the participants state that their principals’ SJ leadership can be developed more. The first theme Inclusive Perspective presents that the participants give importance to inclusion and equality. They think that all the students have the right to get equal inclusion in the education process and events at school. The theme contains two categories as showing respect and giving importance to equality. There are two categories under the second theme which is Limited Social Justice: limited applications and ignorant attitudes. According to the findings, participants state that their principals have a limited SJ understanding and they find the applications in schools insufficient. Holistic leaders which is the third theme of the study includes 3 categories as interaction with parents, leading teachers, and school as a community simulation. According to the participants, principals should have a holistic perspective to pursue SJ in schools. The participants see the school as a simulation of the community, and they give great importance to that principals encourage parents’ participation and teachers’ activity in perpetuating SJ in schools. The findings reached through both individual interviews and focus group meetings bolster these themes by emphasizing the fact that the SJ perception needs to be corroborated and more SJ applications could be done in schools. The participants consider that the principals should lead various components of education including parents and teachers. The results of the study may provide the practitioners with an insight into how they can show SJ in their leadership, and the results can be a guide for policy-makers.

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