Turkey from the Perspective of the Refugee Children

Abstract

Migration can be described as a movement of people from the location they are in to elsewhere due to economic, social, political, and cultural reasons. Turkey is in a position that both allows immigrants and creates an area of transition for immigrants. With the concept of refuge, many social problems also entered the world's agenda. One of these problems, of course, involve refugee children. The aim of this study is to reveal the perception of Turkey of the refugee children who live in the city of Aksaray, in the context of their problems and needs. The students who participated in the study were determined with convenience sampling, a method included in purposeful sampling. The study was conducted with the approach of phenomenology, a qualitative data collection pattern. The data was collected with an interview form that consisted of open-ended questions, between March and June in 2016. The data was analyzed through content analysis. The findings were evaluated according to demographic information such as gender, age, number of siblings, the accommodation unit the family immigrated (village, town, county, city), socio-economic level, and whether the family had experienced migration before.