Abstract

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Introduction

Literature review

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Funding statement

Declaration of Competing Interest

References

Abstract

The Syrian crisis has resulted in a large refugee movement of Syrian citizens from inside Syria, to countries of safety/asylum, notably Turkey. It is estimated that there are approximately 1.7 million Syrian women refugees in Turkey. This research uses Freire’s framing of oppressors and facilitators in education to looks at how the war has impacted on the education of women their country of safety/asylum. Interviews were conducted with 24 refugee women, and the findings presented to a user focus group of Syrian refugee women. Findings indicate that language and finance are key barriers to women fulfilling their educational potential. Changes in the roles of women in countries of safety/asylum are key opportunities that could be exploited by women. Findings also indicated that non-government organisations must co-design educational provision with refugees in order to ensure that opportunities are maximised.

Introduction

With the continuation of the Syrian crisis, which started in 2011 and is now entering its tenth year, one of the significant effects of this crisis has been the large refugee movement of Syrian citizens from inside Syria, to countries of safety/asylum. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees statistics indicate that about 3.6 million Syrian refugees are presently in Turkey (DGMM, 2020), of which 1.7 million are women (UNHCR, 2016). Refugees are mainly distributed throughout 12 southern Turkish states (Ministry of Interior, Directorate General of Migration Management, 2020).

This manuscript will report in a research project that aims to examine what affect the war has had on refugee women from Syria. Data will be gathered using interviews and user focus groups. We will explore what facilitators and oppressors, have action on refugee women. We will explore what this group think about non-government organisation (NGO) and government, provision and how that can be optimised to cater to their needs. The work will use a theoretical frame of Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed examining and exploring issues of language, displacement, the wider, and often changing, role of refugee women in Syrian society and finance.