Being a Refugee Student Mother at University

Student caregivers, primarily mothers looking after their children, may struggle to attend classes, complete their studies regularly, or even drop out of university (Hook et al., 2022). Some universities have offered support to alleviate the burden of caring responsibilities for female students. For instance, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) provides low or no-cost childcare, accommodation, financial aid, psychological services, and guidance through the Students' Union (LSE, 2024). The challenges caring responsibility faced by women university students are doubled when they are also refugees. Women refugee students mostly cope with their post-displacement trauma, lack a day care for their kids, have lost a family member during the war in their home country, have to work part-time to support family budget and care not only kids but even extended family members in host country (Anderson et al., 2020b). In order to minimize these challenges faced by women refugee students, some universities established support-divisions, such as Radboud University in the Netherlands (Radboud, 2024). Limited research on refugee women university students in Turkiye reports that they are among the most vulnerable forced migrants. They continue their higher education for the sake of their children's future, while also having to cope with challenges such as leading and feeding a family in cases where men are lost at war, which mostly lead to their dropping out of university (Dalaman, 2022). In this respect, this explorative qualitative inquiry aims to reveal how their caring responsibility influences the unique higher education experiences of a group of Syrian refugee women enrolled in Turkish universities. As research on female refugee students in Turkiye is considerably scarce, the findings of this study are expected to shed light on refugee student mothers’ unique academic experiences and provide policymakers with a route map for improving their conditions.