Sex division of labour in Syrian school textbooks

The sexist division of labour, particularly in the occupational sector, which is believed to be more eminent in developing countries than in the developed ones, is reinforced by school textbooks. This state of affairs is hampering sex-role equality on the way to emancipation. Various Syrian school textbooks have been scrutinized and proved to be malebiased in content and language. Despite quantitative growth of education, the emancipatory quality of the school textbooks leaves much to be desired. The government has had the chance since 1963 to produce textbooks conductive to its promise of sex-role equality in education. The textbooks portray males for a bustling world of decision making, while conditioning the females to seek fulfilment in the background where servitude and support are the only requirement. Females are derogated and victimized. These contents, which are internalized at school and reproduced in society, certainly do not serve development. The exclusion of one-half of the population from contributing to the tasks of development is a waste of human talent which no society can afford. Furthermore, the sexist portrayal of females in Syrian textbooks is a pale reflection of Arab women in Arab history and literature.     

Unravelling Facebook: a pedagogical tool during the Syrian crisis

This paper aims to analyse the role of Facebook in academia during the Syrian crisis. Data were collected by means of an online survey from 726 students at Damascus University (Males = 446, Females = 280). Results indicated that Facebook facilitated communication and resource sharing in times of war and crisis where safe commuting posed a challenge for students. It served as an alternate trustworthy medium within the failure of the official web sites at Damascus University. The study suggests that Facebook is an effective pedagogical tool for countries going through crisis and war situations, and a promising educational tool that warrants further attention in underdeveloped and Arab countries in general.     

Student needs and motives when attending a university: exploring the Syrian case

This paper aims at exploring student needs and motives to pursue higher education in Syria. Based on the model of student buyer behavior developed by Kotler and Fox in 1995, the study focuses on the first step of this model, so-called motives. The study results are based on qualitative data collected by means of semi-structured styles of interviews with 30 current students at three higher education institutions in Syria in the summer of 2010.The study reveals three dimensions of needs and motives. These are: Self needs and motives; Social needs and motives, and Souk (market) needs and motives. Accordingly, several detailed explanations for each dimension concluded from the study are presented. The findings reveal that the three dimensions are important for university students in Syria when attending universities. People responsible for marketing in higher education institutions need to pay attention to understand their students' motives when designing their customer-oriented marketing strategies. Study programs at universities could be designed to better satisfy such needs and motives. This study could provide bases for further research through a replication of the model using the information offered by the survey. Further research could investigate the research questions in a wider student population employing a quantitative approach. The importance of this study comes from the classification of needs and motives into a three-Ss model (Self, Society and Souk). The study also shows originality into understanding motives of Syrian students in attending certain universities in particular.     

Iraqi,Syrian, and Palestinian Refugee Adolescents' Beliefs About Parental Authority Legitimacy and Its Correlates

This study examined intra‐ and interindividual variations in parental legitimacy beliefs in a sample of 883 Arab refugee adolescents (M_age = 15.01 years, SD = 1.60), 277 Iraqis, 275 Syrians, and 331 Palestinians in Amman, Jordan. Confirmatory factor analyses showed distinct latent factors for moral–conventional, prudential, and personal legitimacy items. Older adolescents rated legitimacy lower for personal issues, but higher for prudential issues. Beliefs were associated with socioeconomic status (fathers' education, family size), particularly for personal issues, but were more pervasively associated with displacement‐related experiences. Greater war trauma was associated with less prudential legitimacy for all youth and more authority legitimacy over moral–conventional issues for Syrian youth. Greater hopefulness was associated with more authority legitimacy over all but personal issues.     

Posttraumatic stress disorder and emotion dysregulation among Syrian refugee children and adolescents resettled in Lebanon and Jordan

BackgroundSince the outbreak of the conflict in Syria, many people, including children and adolescents, have fled their homes into neighboring countries. Little research exists on the psychosocial adjustment of refugee children and adolescents resettled in Lebanon and Jordan.ObjectiveThis study investigated the prevalence and predictors of PTSD and emotion dysregulation in Syrian refugee children and adolescents who resettled in Lebanon and Jordan. It was hypothesized that a combination of pre-trauma variables (age and gender), trauma-specific variables (traumatic events and time spent in host country, and host country), and post-trauma variables (coping strategies, family relationships, and school environment) would be associated with PTSD and emotion dysregulation.Participants and SettingParticipants were 1000 Syrian refugee children and adolescents aged 7–18 years attending formal and non-formal schools representing various governorates in Lebanon and Jordan.MethodsThe trauma exposure scale, DSM-IV criteria for the assessment of PTSD, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale Short Form, Kidcope, Family relationship scales, and school environment scale were administered in an interview format with children and adolescents at school by two trained psychologists. Multivariate binary logistic regression was used to predict PTSD whereas hierarchical multiple regression was used to predict emotion dysregulation.ResultsResults indicated that 45.6% of the refugees have developed PTSD with excessive risk for comorbidity with emotion dysregulation. Emotion dysregulation was reported by older refugee children and adolescents. The prevalence of PTSD was higher in refugee children and adolescents who had resettled in Lebanon than for those who had resettled in Jordan. Refugee children and adolescents who were exposed to higher levels of war atrocities evidenced the greatest prevalence of PTSD and emotion dysregulation. PTSD symptomatology and emotion dysregulation in children and adolescents varied according to coping styles, family relationships, and school environment. Both decreased significantly with the passage of time spent in host country.ConclusionsThe results may be used to formulate cognitive–behavioral coping interventions that can lead to optimal developmental outcomes in the posttrauma environment.     

Education for Syrian Refugees: The New Global Issue Facing Teachers and Principals in Turkey

This study addresses the educational status and needs of Syrian school-age children at Turkish public schools and the perspectives of teachers and school principals who work with Syrian refugee students. Data was collected from an ongoing qualitative interpretive case study research project using semistructured interviews with teachers and principals who worked with Syrian refugees in 2 inner-city elementary schools in Istanbul, Turkey. The findings of this study indicate that state schools provide many Syrian children with access to education that addresses the needs and challenges associated with the refugee school-age children. For example, Syrian children are thought to have rights identical to Turkish children regarding access to a free education in the Turkish public school setting, and the government has allowed Syrian students to enroll in universities without examinations or without having to show proof that they had attended universities in Syria. However, language barriers with respect to speaking and understanding Turkish must be mitigated to integrate Syrian refugees into Turkish culture. The results of the study also indicate that Syrian students are in a constant state of depression and trauma due to war and migration. Because of language-related issues and limited access to everyday necessities, Syrian children are often in need of comprehensive psychological support. Thus, this study recommends that teachers and principals participate in professional training and development programs to be able to provide psychological support to students.     

Copulatory behavior of Syrian golden hamsters in a one-male two-female test situation

Eighteen male hamsters each completed two tests of copulatory behavior: one with one female present and one with two females. Males displayed only relatively small, quantitative alterations of their typical copulatory pattern in the two-female vs. the one-female situation. All males mated with both females. Shifts between females tended to occur at predictable times-particularly after ejaculations and those long intromissions that did not immediately precede ejaculations. When mating in the two-female situation, males sired more offspring than with one female. Females in the two-female situation received less copulatory stimulation than in the one-female situation, but there were no detectable deleterious effects of this reduced stimulation on reproduction. Should copulation occur between one male and two females in the natural habitat, it would appear to be of reproductive advantage to the male, with no detriment to the female.     

The ecocentric and anthropocentric attitudes towards different environmental phenomena: A sample of Syrian refugee children

This study aims to examine the preschool Syrian children's attitudes towards some environmental issues (consumption patterns, environmental protection, recycling-reuse, and life habits) based on the ecocentric and anthropocentric approach. Content analysis research was carried out as the aimed to reveal how children make sense of some environmental phenomena. The sample group consists of 74 Syrian children in early childhood age, attending a kindergarten. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews through the illustrated Turkish version of the "The Children's Attitudes towards the Environment Scale-Preschool Version (CATES-PV)" interview form. The content analysis technique was used in the analysis of qualitative data. The current research results show that most of the children's responses to consumption patterns and daily life habits are anthropocentric, while they are ecocentric towards environmental protection, recycling, and reuse. In line with these results, important recommendations have been presented for teachers, parents, and researchers who work with Syrian children.     

Politics of refugee education: educational administration of the Syrian refugee crisis in Turkey

The main contention of this paper is that the interrelationship between ideology and policy shapes both the overall organisation of refugee education and the operational practices and procedures of staff working to provide education for refugees. Accordingly, this paper tries to answer how the education dimension of the Syrian refugee crisis is managed by the central education authorities in Turkey by assessing the political dynamics and milieu regarding the education of refugees. Building on a document analysis and interviews, this article traces educational administration of Syrian children with a focus on the political dynamics at play affecting the status quo in national education agenda in Turkey. While the impact of the refugee crisis on the greater national education agenda is revealed, the trade-offs involved in adopting certain governance strategies including decentralisation and recentralization is explored.     

Uncovering Community Cultural Wealth Through an Early Intervention Program: Syrian Refugee Children Speaking

Early Childhood Education Journal - The voices of young refugee children are often unheard and unacknowledged in early childhood research. Deficit views that perpetuate their vulnerability and...     

Provision of quality education in the context of Syrian refugee children in the UK: opportunities and challenges

Abstract

While existing research has shown the importance of the three interrelated domains of the wider policy, the school and home/community environments in the development of quality education for learners, this literature does not fully capture the experiences of the refugee population. In this article we focus on a group of Syrian refugees who came as part of the first large cohort that was welcomed in the UK in December 2015. We adapt Tikly’s quality education frameworks and develop a model that highlights not only the importance of the three intersecting environments, but also the specific inputs/processes that are critical to achieving quality education for refugees. In so doing, we stress the critical role of English as a tool for refugee children’s inclusion and integration in schools. Consequently, the contribution of the paper is an understanding of the inputs/processes that are key to the development of quality education for migrant/refugee children.     

Resilience in Context: A Brief and Culturally Grounded Measure for Syrian Refugee and Jordanian Host‐Community Adolescents

Validated measures are needed for assessing resilience in conflict settings. An Arabic version of the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM) was developed and tested in Jordan. Following qualitative work, surveys were implemented with male/female, refugee/nonrefugee samples (N = 603, 11–18 years). Confirmatory factor analyses tested three‐factor structures for 28‐ and 12‐item CYRMs and measurement equivalence across groups. CYRM‐12 showed measurement reliability and face, content, construct (comparative fit index = .92–.98), and convergent validity. Gender‐differentiated item loadings reflected resource access and social responsibilities. Resilience scores were inversely associated with mental health symptoms, and for Syrian refugees were unrelated to lifetime trauma exposure. In assessing individual, family, and community‐level dimensions of resilience, the CYRM is a useful measure for research and practice with refugee and host‐community youth.     

One Common Future,Two Education Systems: The Case of Syrian Children of Istanbul

The unexpected and vast Syrian refugee crisis with an ever-growing number of young Syrians appears to be one of the greatest challenges for the Turkish education system. While low enrollment rates are alarming, the dual system that emerged in the urban settings creates a main challenge to a comprehensive and supportive education system and unfortunately does not offer a good starting point for the future inclusion of Syrian refugees in society. This article’s main argument is that a culture of togetherness and a common future can only be assured by a comprehensive education system that ensures equal opportunity, diversity, and plurality.     

Freirean critical consciousness in a refugee context: a case study of Syrian refugees in Jordan

This paper argues that education underpinned by critical pedagogies offers an alternative for engaging with the complexities of conflict, peace and social transformation in refugee contexts. Drawing upon a semi-ethnographic qualitative study with a focus on a non-formal educational programme for supporting Jordanian and Syrian refugee youth, we find that participatory pedagogies provide a promising mechanism for reaching out-of-school refugees in host communities. However, a series of intersecting factors, namely the perception that empowerment education is antithetical to the goal of gaining certification, leads to manipulation of the pedagogies. Hence, empowerment education risks being co-opted by the ‘banking model’ of education. The paper critiques the dominant market-oriented education and suggests an alternative approach to engage with challenges in refugee contexts.     

A digital platform for supervised self-directed learning in emergencies: the case of the Syrian crisis

The well-known Syrian crisis has made it very challenging for thousands of Syrian children to have access to education. In this article, the authors propose a framework for designing a digital education platform to allow children inside Syria as well as in the refugee camps in bordering countries to have access to education. The authors start by looking at the efforts performed in the field of education in conflict-affected regions, and they extract from them the lessons learned and recommendations. They provide four main characteristics of war impacting children’s education: (1) insecurity, (2) instability, (3) lack of resources, and (4) lack of adult supervision. They then use these four characteristics, along with the extracted recommendations, as the grounds for drafting three design considerations for the implementation of a digital education platform. The three design considerations are: supervised self-directed learning method, context-aware education and children-oriented design. Finally, the authors use these design considerations to provide design recommendations for the four main elements of a digital education platform: hardware, software, curriculum and supporting services. They conclude by discussing the validity of the digital platform, its implementation feasibility, and challenges facing the implementation.     

A critical analysis of the Syrian refugee education policies in Lebanon using a policy analysis framework

ABSTRACT

Lebanon, a country impacted by ongoing political and economic instability, has an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees competing for access to already fragile healthcare, education and labor sectors. Half of these refugees are children. This piece will discuss the efforts and policies Lebanon already has in place regarding the education of Syrian refugees. This will be done through the implementation of Lesley Vidovich’s (2007) a policy framework which proposes an analysis of the policy context and policies’ influence, an analysis of the policies as text as well as an analysis of the implementation of those policies. Such a framework has the opportunity to not only provide a holistic view of the Lebanese history and context leading to current policies surrounding the education of refugees, but it has the potential of serving as a systematic framework for other various contexts concerning education in conflict areas.     

Avoidance of interspecific mating in female Syrian hamsters is stronger toward familiar than toward unfamiliar heterospecific males

Adult Syrian hamster females (Mesocricetus auratus) learn to discriminate against familiar heterospecific males (Turkish hamster, M. brandti). We investigated whether females learn to avoid any heterospecific male after exposure to just one heterospecific male. We predicted that, after being exposed to one heterospecific male, a female would avoid mating not only with that familiar male but also with any unfamiliar heterospecific male. We exposed females to a heterospecific male across a wire-mesh barrier for 8 days and then paired the female with (a) that same heterospecific male or (b) an unfamiliar heterospecific male. Females exhibited lordosis faster and for a longer duration toward the unfamiliar than toward the familiar heterospecific male. However, females were similarly aggressive toward familiar and unfamiliar heterospecific males. Perhaps exposure to stimuli from several heterospecific males (a likely scenario in the wild) would result in females behaving similarly toward familiar and unfamiliar heterospecific males.     

The important role of mothers during displacement: Direct and indirect effects of the refugee context on Syrian refugee children's mental health

Refugee children are at increased risk for mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress, depression, and externalizing problems. The refugee environment, maternal mental health, and parenting may reduce or exacerbate that risk. This study investigated their direct and indirect associations with child mental health cross-sectionally in a sample of Syrian refugee child–mother dyads in Lebanon in 2017–19. Mediating pathways were tested using structural equation modeling with 1446 dyads (child: M_age = 11.39, 52.1% females) and again 1 year later with 872 (child: M_age = 12.17, 53.1% females) of the original sample. Mediating pathways from the refugee environment through maternal mental health and parenting to child outcomes were detected, emphasizing the importance of a holistic approach to refugee mental health.     

Culturally relevant/sustaining pedagogy in a diverse urban classroom: Challenges of pedagogy for Syrian refugee youths and teachers in Turkey

This study focused on whether and how teachers implemented the principles of culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies and the challenges teachers faced while trying to implement these principles with Syrian students in Turkey. The study was built on the four components of pedagogies: academic achievement; cultural competencies; sociopolitical consciousness; and the sustainability of culture. Qualitative data were obtained through interviews and field notes with four teachers who had Syrian students in their classes and four Syrian students. Content analysis was used to examine the data. The findings revealed that both teachers and students had low expectations of academic achievement. Teachers conducted the teaching–learning process entirely according to the perspectives of students who were from the mainstream culture. Teachers tried to improve the cultural competencies and enhance their sociopolitical consciousness of the Syrian students; however, the attempts were limited and inadequate. Although teachers were aware of the importance of sustaining the Syrian culture, they did not know how to do so. The teachers did not have sufficient competencies or experiences to make revisions or to carry out an effective instructional process tailored to the needs of Syrian students because of an absence of skills and knowledge of multicultural education.     

“We’re not a bank providing support”: Street-level bureaucrats and Syrian refugee youth navigating tensions in higher education scholarship programs in Lebanon

Scholarships are increasingly used to expand higher education access for refugee youth in exile, but less is known about their equity implications. Drawing from scholarship on street-level bureaucrats and Nancy Fraser’s theory of social justice, I identify street-level bureaucrats’ (SLBs) decision-making within refugee higher education. Drawing on 62 interviews with Syrian youth and organizations in NGOs in Lebanon, and 24 organizational, scholarship-related documents, I elaborate the fundamental (mis)alignments that emerge in scholarship-granting organizations’ goals, and the needs of refugee youth they seek to support. Organizations over-emphasize transitions to university, overlooking the most vulnerable youths’ transitions through university. Though youth link their futures to opportunity and not geography, SLBs seek to fund youth willing to return to Syria and engage in post-conflict reconstruction.