Evaluation of the impact of cultural difference on in-school communication according to the opinions of school administrators and parents

Abstract

Communication between parents of students from different backgrounds and school administration is a problem that needs to be addressed in education. As Turkey's population becomes more and more diverse, school administrators must develop new ways to reach their stakeholders. For their children to be successful, all families must be involved in their children's academic development. Today, school administrators must identify innovative ways to convey vital information, and improve the level of communication within the school for parents from different backgrounds. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate the positive or negative effects of the communication process on Syrian immigrant students studying at primary school in the context of intercultural communication from the perspective of school administration and parents. The study group of the research, which was designed as a case study, is the families of Syrian students studying in primary schools in Gaziantep and Hatay, Turkey, and school administrators working in the schools where these students are enrolled. The perspectives of 18 parents and 12 school administrators who migrated from Syria were obtained with a semi-structured interview form. The data obtained from the semi-structured interview form were subjected to descriptive analysis using the NVivo R1 Program. As a result of the research, it was revealed that school administrators and parents should act in cooperation and firstly overcome the communication issue in order to find solutions to the problems of immigrant students. It can be said that in order for immigrant students to be successful, they need to support their education with assistance education programs and courses, and the school administration, which can help them in this regard, should do detailed research and obtain knowledge about them and their culture.