Abstract
Due to recent unrest around the world, the number of refugees has increased dramatically in the last decade. In order to meet the needs of this population, host countries have had to quickly adapt to provide these refugees with basic needs.
One such need is to have quality education for refugee children. The aim of this paper is to compare the policies of educational inclusion in Germany and Turkey that have accepted a large influx of refugees.
Our findings suggest that both the German city-state of Hamburg and Turkey have made major strides over the past ten years to accommodate and provide for refugee children's educational needs. We list some of the policies that have led to greater inclusion and accessibility for refugee children in mainstream education.
Key findings from the comparative document analysis show that although the two countries are distinguished by different levels of income and development, both have similarities in terms of (1) providing compulsory education for all children, (2) the delay in preparing and applying policy-based legislations for refugee education, and (3) the main activities such as additional language support and teacher training for the purpose of social inclusion of refugee students. Furthermore, both countries have had similar challenges such as the necessity of improvements in second language instruction and teacher training, thus highlighting the need for refugee education-oriented global solutions for the host countries.
We recommend continued efforts to include multiculturally rich school curriculums to create educational settings that feel inclusive and comfortable for refugee children.