Living in a Blended Culture: Immigrant Children in Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine cultural adaptation problems of Syrian immigrant primary school students through the metaphors they generate. Data were gathered through interviews from 14 students (8 female, 6 male) who are primary school students in Adana. In this study, which is designed as a qualitative research, data were obtained by data collection through metaphors method and phenomenology model was used. Thoughts of Syrian immigrant primary school students’ adaptation problems in terms of language, belief, tradition, art, world perspective and history, which are the elements of culture, were tried to be revealed through the questions prepared around these themes. Descriptive analysis method was used to analyze data. 46 valid metaphors were generated by students in reference to 6 themes. To ensure the validity and reliability, half the data sets obtained from the research were sent to each expert and at the end of the analysis they made, the formula proposed by Miles ve Huberman (2016) was used. According to the results, out of cultural adaptation elements; 9 metaphors for language, 7 metaphors for belief, 9 metaphors for traditions, 9 metaphors for art, 5 metaphors for world perspective and 6 metaphors for history were generated and each theme was assessed seperately. In the final part of the research, several suggestions were made to teachers, parents, education institutions and students.

Keywords

• betimsel analiz, göçmen ilkokul öğrencileri, kültürel uyum, mecazlar, öğrenci görüşleri.