What is it about?
This paper summarizes research findings to discern what can be known from the existing literature on Syrian refugee children. The objective is threefold. (1) To critically review the existing literature on the psychological functioning of Syrian refugee children, with a particular focus on those residing in the urban areas or camps in Turkey, (2) to identify the main theoretical and methodological problems of this emerging literature, and (3) to suggest guidelines for how to improve research and practice in this field.
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Why is it important?
Millions of Syrian children, who have been exposed to violence, conflict and displacement will mark the history of the 21st century. Syrian refugee children’s development, along with trauma, adversity as well as resilience processes poses two main challenges for the field of developmental science. One clear challenge is to facilitate “normalization” of their development and promote their skills to resilire (Masten & Obradovic, 2008), so that they do not turn into a lost generation.
Perspectives
In order to identify the processes of adaptation and maladaptation leading to developmental outcomes of Syrian refugee children, we need to understand the challenges they face and the developmental processes and outcomes within their particular contexts, including culture. These contexts are changing dynamically, as they undergo potentially traumatic experiences in pre-settlement (e.g., war-related changes and seeking refuge) and the developmental process of acculturation as an adaptation to intercultural contact in post-settlement (Berry, Phinney, Sam, & Vedder, 2006). In addition, it is important to remind that cultural processes exist both at distal contextual levels such as the social-level and within the proximal levels such as the individual-level. At the social-level, the members of the community constantly renegotiate culture (practices, meanings, and behaviors), and in turn shape multiple domains of functioning at the individual-level—cognitive, social, emotional, behavioral, and biological (Rogoff, 2003).
Assistant Professor Fatima Tuba Yaylaci
Istanbul Sehir Universitesi
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Trauma and resilient functioning among Syrian refugee children, Development and Psychopathology, October 2018, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0954579418001293.
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