Conference Agenda

This study explores how school administrators and teachers experience the management, leadership and teaching in an inclusive education context which also includes refugee education in a public school located in Türkiye’s Central Anatolia region. The school represents a distinctive educational context in which refugee students are educated alongside students with special educational needs and those enrolled in mainstream classrooms. The coexistence of multiple student profiles within a single institution creates ongoing challenges related to leadership, communication, instructional practices, and organizational functioning.

The study addresses the following research questions:

What are the experiences of teachers and administrators working in a school serving refugee students? What challenges do teachers experience in working with refugee students?
What challenges do administrators experience in managing refugee education?
What characteristics and practices appear to contribute to students’ well-being, including adaptation, academic success, and communication?

This study is guided by Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory, which conceptualizes human development as the result of dynamic interactions between individuals and multiple, interconnected environmental systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). From this perspective, refugee education should not be examined solely at the classroom level; rather, it must be understood within a broader ecological context that includes family structures, school environments, community conditions, cultural norms, and socio-political influences.

The microsystem encompasses settings with direct interactions, particularly family and school. In refugee education, classrooms represent critical microsystems where teachers play a central role not only in academic instruction but also in supporting students’ social and emotional development. The mesosystem refers to interactions between these settings, such as family–school relationships. Effective communication and cooperation among parents, teachers, and school administrators are therefore essential for supporting refugee students’ adaptation and well-being (McDiarmid et al., 2022).

The exosystem includes contextual factors that indirectly influence students’ development, such as parents’ employment conditions and access to economic and social resources. For refugee families, poverty, housing instability, and limited access to social services may negatively affect students’ academic engagement and emotional regulation (Kiessling et al., 2025). At the macrosystem level, broader cultural values, migration policies, and social attitudes toward refugees shape educational experiences and may generate tensions related to identity, belonging, and social integration. The chronosystem highlights the impact of change over time, including prolonged displacement and evolving socio-economic conditions.

In line with this ecological perspective, the study focuses on teachers and administrators as key actors within students’ immediate microsystems. While families play a primary role in child development, schools often assume compensatory responsibilities when refugee students experience disrupted family structures, trauma, or economic deprivation (Lembke et al., 2024). In such contexts, schools can provide stability, emotional safety, and continuity through supportive relationships and inclusive practices. Consistent with Bronfenbrenner’s emphasis on inter-system collaboration, schools are expected to work in partnership with families, fostering parental involvement that positively contributes to students’ academic and social outcomes (LaBahn, 1995).

Within the Turkish context, research on inclusive education highlights persistent challenges related to overcrowded classrooms, limited institutional capacity, and insufficient teacher preparation for diversity (UNESCO, 2020). Studies on refugee education in Türkiye indicate that school administrators and teachers play a crucial role in managing linguistic, cultural, and socio-economic diversity, often in the absence of systematic policy support or professional development (Emin, 2016). Management-related issues such as coordinating support services, engaging refugee families, and creating inclusive school climates remain central concerns in schools serving diverse student populations.

The study also draws on principles of multicultural education emphasizing equity, inclusivity, and critical reflection on power relations within educational settings (Shannon-Baker, 2018). This complementary lens enables an understanding of how schools and their leaders in Türkiye respond to diversity, particularly in contexts involving refugee and special education students.

Over the past decades, the research fields of trauma, forced migration, disability, and second language education have expanded significantly. Reported estimates of disability prevalence among refugees reach up to 23% (e.g., Tofani et al., 2025). While a recent meta-analysis reports high prevalence rates of mental health conditions among refugees worldwide - 31.46% for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Blackmore et al., 2020) - there are still no reliable national or international statistics on the living conditions and support needs of refugees with disabilities. What is evident, however, are substantial obstacles within medical, rehabilitative, and educational support systems, which are closely linked to legal and institutional frameworks, particularly asylum regulations (Lätzsch, 2021). These conditions significantly shape pedagogical practices in language education.

Building on the assumption that educational contexts do not engage with fully formed subjects, but that subjectivation must be continuously negotiated (Schmerfeld, 2019), processes of second language acquisition (SLA) can be understood as particularly salient sites of subjectivation and analytically distinguished from other domains such as family life or employment. From a sociological perspective, subjectivation in learning processes can be reconstructed through analyses of discourses and pedagogical practices. Subjectivation unfolds through engagement with pre-structured modes of action that temporally precede subjects and operate through social norms (Butler, 2024; Buchner, 2018). In contexts of forced migration, these processes condense into dominant forms of address aimed at producing the idealised figure of the “integrable refugee.” Bach et al. (2021) identify four central requirements embedded in these expectations: proficiency in the national language, labour-market-relevant skills, acceptance of dominant societal norms - particularly regarding gender relations - and a functionalist understanding of education. Language education thus becomes a key site in which inclusion, exclusion, and professionalisation are negotiated under intersecting legal and institutional conditions.

Extending sociological approaches through a psychoanalytic perspective allows subjectivation to be analysed at the intersection of discourse, institutional structures, and individual, psychic experience. Language is understood not only as a medium of communication but also as a psychic site in which learners respond to discursive forms of address through learning and meaning-making (Butler, 2024; Becker, 2025). In contexts of forced migration, these subjectivation processes must be understood against the backdrop of biographical vulnerability. Drawing on the concept of sequential traumatisation (Keilson, 1979), the study examines how traumatic experiences continue to shape learning processes and subject formation in post-migration educational settings (Zimmermann, 2016). Within field-specific discourses, language competence and “successful language acquisition” are frequently linked to individualised assumptions about successful or failed integration (Schlachzig, 2022). At the same time, language functions as a central medium of subjectivation: it positions learners through discursive forms of address while also enabling the articulation of thoughts, emotions, identities, and agency. Empirical findings show that refugees with experiences of disability actively negotiate negative social ascriptions and identify language learning and access to educational qualifications as key barriers shaping their biographies (Afeworki Abay, 2023).

Building on findings from a psychoanalytic-pedagogical participation study, the paper adopts an intersectional, multi-level analytical framework and addresses the following research questions:

1. How do learners with learning difficulties articulate social structures, norms, and discourses at the intersection of language learning, asylum law, and social policy?
2. Which institutional practices can be reconstructed through forms of address and interactional dynamics in inclusive language education?
3. What hypotheses can be formulated regarding the psychic dimensions of subjectivation shaped by the interaction of trauma and constrained language learning?

International student mobility has expanded rapidly, yet participation, wellbeing and academic outcomes remain unequally distributed across socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, disability, nationality, language and legal status (Lomer et al., 2024). Empirical studies document intersectional disadvantages, including racialised microaggressions, precarity linked to visa dependence, and heightened exposure to gendered and sexualised harms (Fethi et al., 2023; Krsmanovic, 2022). However, the evidence base is frequently context-bound (single institution/small-N) and analytically segmented (single-axis or primarily micro-level), which limits cumulative explanation of how intersecting power relations are reproduced through institutional routines and policy regimes (Joshi et al., 2021; Peng, 2024).

This study undertakes a PRISMA-guided systematic literature review to produce a global map of how intersectionality is conceptualised and operationalised in research on international students in higher education. Objectives are to: (i) audit how studies invoke, define and theoretically anchor intersectionality; (ii) identify which identity/power dimensions are foregrounded or neglected and how they shape lived experience; (iii) synthesise intersectionality-based implications for higher-education policy and institutional practice; and (iv) consolidate conceptual, methodological and empirical gaps to inform a forward research agenda (Lomer et al., 2024).

Research questions

1. How is intersectionality conceptualised and operationalised in studies of international students in higher education?

2. Which intersectional dimensions of identity and power are foregrounded, and how do they shape international students’ lived experiences?

3. What intersectionality-based implications for higher-education policy and institutional practice are articulated in these studies?

4. What conceptual, methodological and empirical gaps emerge, and how might they inform future research agendas?

Conceptual and theoretical framework. Intersectionality, as articulated by Crenshaw (1989), is treated here as a theory of power and governance rather than an identity checklist. The review adopts a multi-level stance in which micro experiences (e.g., belonging, recognition, harassment) are interpreted as traces of meso- and macro-level mechanisms (Yao et al., 2019). To evaluate “intersectionality in use”, each study will be coded across five dimensions: explicitness (EX: whether intersectionality is justified and named), definitional depth (DEF: whether power relations are theorised rather than merely listed), anchoring (ANCH: how intersectionality is situated in relevant theoretical traditions), analytic level (LVL: whether claims trace micro–meso–macro linkages), and function (FUNC: how intersectionality is used—descriptive, explanatory, critical, methodological) (Joshi et al., 2021; Yao et al., 2019). Synthesised findings will be consolidated into an Intersectional Internationalisation Mechanisms Framework (IIMF) that specifies recurrent modules through which inequity is produced in internationalised higher education: governance and dependency (visa/legal status, funding, reporting and silence), discourse and whiteness (diversity rhetoric and whiteness as unmarked norm), raciolinguistic legitimacy (accent/language as proxy for competence and belonging), and mobility stratification (post/neo-colonial hierarchies and marketised internationalisation) (Buckner et al., 2021; Hou et al., 2023; Mittelmeier et al., 2024; Ploner & Nada, 2020; Yeo, 2024; Yao et al., 2019).

European/international dimension. The review is explicitly comparative and international, aggregating studies across countries, disciplines and mobility corridors to examine how intersectional dynamics vary under different institutional and policy regimes. This is vital for Europe, where internationalisation strategies intersect with heterogeneous immigration/residence rules, tuition and funding arrangements, and national EDI infrastructures, producing distinct configurations of advantage and vulnerability for international students. The synthesis therefore generates transferable insights for European higher education on how to design equity-oriented internationalisation in ways that build inclusion and safety, not merely scale recruitment (Buckner et al., 2021; Mittelmeier et al., 2024; Ploner & Nada, 2020).

Methodological approach. Searches in major bibliographic databases (e.g., Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest) screened using transparent inclusion criteria; eligible studies charted, coded and synthesised through structured mapping and conceptual integration. The output is a field-level diagnostic plus an integrative, mechanism-focused framework to strengthen explanatory adequacy and policy relevance for social-justice-oriented higher education.

Proposed Abstract: Action Research on Intercultural Sensitivity in Teacher Education

Title: From Attitudes to Action – Developing Intercultural Sensitivity in Teacher Education through Action Research

Dr. Ofer Gat: Kaye Academic College of Education; Beit-Berl Academic College

Background: In an increasingly multicultural educational landscape, this study examines the development of intercultural sensitivity among minority pre-service teachers. The project took place in Israel and focused on 16 Bedouin Arab teacher education students participating in a collaborative, mixed Arab-Jewish course designed to foster intercultural competence. By foregrounding the experiences of a marginalized group in a diverse academic setting, the research addresses how future educators navigate cross-cultural interactions and how educational

interventions can enhance intercultural readiness.

Findings: Two salient phenomena were identified among the Bedouin trainees: “intercultural personal struggle” and “intercultural distress.” These constructs capture a dynamic tension between maintaining protective cultural boundaries and desiring meaningful cross-cultural engagement. Participants initially exhibited mixed attitudes towards intercultural learning, ranging from passive reliance on institutional diversity initiatives to active engagement in culturally responsive practices. Key barriers hindering intercultural interaction were also noted – including language gaps, social segregation, and lack of prior preparation for mixed-group collaboration. Despite these challenges, over the course of the intervention many students showed growth in cultural self-awareness and willingness to collaborate across differences.

Innovation – The Intercultural Sensitivity Model: A major outcome of this project is the development of a novel six-step model for intercultural sensitivity in teacher education. This educational model translates intercultural attitudes into actionable teaching competencies. It progresses from building systematic cultural knowledge and acknowledging historical inequities, through fostering critical consciousness about social divisions, to implementing culturally relevant curriculum and engaging in practical cross-cultural projects. The final steps emphasize training future teachers to balance meaningful intercultural connections with maintaining professional boundaries in diverse classrooms. This structured framework is a theoretical and practical innovation, as it integrates insights from the participants’ lived experiences into a replicable strategy for teacher training. By moving “from attitudes to action,” the model helps educators not only understand cultural differences but also actively bridge them through pedagogy.

Conclusion and Significance: This action research project demonstrates how targeted pedagogical interventions can enhance intercultural sensitivity among teacher candidates. The findings suggest that providing guided intercultural experiences and reflection opportunities can transform initial discomfort or hesitation into growth in empathy and cultural competence. The proposed six-step model offers teacher educators a concrete tool to prepare culturally responsive educators capable of working in ethnically divided or diverse societies. This work contributes to the global and European discourse on equity in education by showing how research knowledge can inform actionable practice. In line with ECER 2026’s theme of “Knowing and Acting,” the study illustrates the changing conditions of educational research by actively involving participants in knowledge co-creation and applying research insights to foster more inclusive educational environments. The project’s implications extend beyond the Israeli context, providing a roadmap for other teacher education programs seeking to cultivate intercultural sensitivity and improve social cohesion through education.

Keywords: Intercultural sensitivity, multicultural teacher education, action research, Bedouin students, intercultural competence model, diversity and inclusion in education