Methodology

Participants

Three Syrian families, comprising three fathers, three mothers, and six children, were recruited voluntarily based on the following criteria: ( 1 ) identify as a refugee per quota, (2) reside outside the capital area, and (3) have at least one child registered in elementary school in Iceland. All of the fathers had reached upper-level education in their home country, whereas the mothers had limited education -either informal or elementary level. All of the fathers and two of the mothers were employed. The children, one girl and five boys, were between 8 and 15 years old. The parents were first approached informally, either face to face or via a phone call, where the research objectives were discussed, and their oral agreement to take part in the study was gained. After their oral agreement, the parents were formally presented with an Arabic version of a letter of intent and an informed consent document. The children were only interviewed after giving their own personal consent and their parents’ having consented. Interviews were conducted in the families’ houses in a room separate from other family members. Parents were interviewed separately, whereas siblings were interviewed together.

School principals were asked to identify teachers who were responsible for Syrian students at the compulsory level. Five teachers, four females and one male, were interviewed. Only one teacher had previous experience with refugee teaching in a non-formal context - that is, teaching students who are not registered in

Syrian students in Iceland 35 formal schools. Prior to contacting school principals, consent was obtained from the director of school authorities. The teachers were provided with an English version of the letter of intent and informed consent. The interview was conducted in a location chosen according to the teachers’ preference - either in a school classroom or in a café.

Data gathering and analysis

In this research, semi-structured interviews were conducted, as they serve the objective of examining the experiences of the participants by allowing them to express their opinions and ideas in their own words (Esterberg, 2002). Semistructured interviews, as opposed to structured interviews, allow for open-ended questions, which gives the interviewees the chance to shape their responses or change the direction of the interview altogether (Fife, 2005).

All participants were interviewed once only in spring 2018. One-on-one interviews were conducted with the teachers and parents, whereas group interviews were conducted with the students, as children tend to get shy and overwhelmed in one-on-one interviews (Fife, 2005). Siblings of the same family were grouped together, and groups ranged from two to three individuals. A one-on-one interview was conducted with one student as he was the only child in his family to fit the required age range to be a participant in this study. Parents’ and students’ interviews were conducted in Arabic, and the teachers’ interviews were conducted in English.

Interviews were first conducted with the families. Parents were mainly asked general, open-ended questions, such as: “What would you like to improve in the school?” and “Describe the ideal school for your child”. Children were asked similar questions, but in a simpler form, and drawings and scales were used in order to facilitate their answering process. For example, students were asked to choose from a variety of faces (e.g., happy face or sad face) as an indicator of their level of happiness in school and they were also asked to draw what their ideal classroom would look like (e.g., seat arrangement).

The teachers’ interview questions were set according to the results of the parents’ and the students’ answers. Therefore, the questions were more specific, such as: “What do you think about the concept of homework?” and “How do you motivate the students?” They were also asked general questions, some of which were: “What were your expectations before teaching the student(s) and after teaching them?” and “What are the challenges, if any, that you encountered while teaching the student(s)?”

All interviews lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, and they were audio-recorded with the agreement of the participants. Following each interview, the audiorecording was copied and transcribed in English. The parents’ and students’ interviews, which were in Arabic, were directly translated and transcribed in English. Some limitations occurred when trying to preserve certain meanings - for example, Arabic proverbs. This limitation was handled by writing notes to clarify the meaning. Utterances (e.g., “um”, “uh”) and repeated words were frequently removed, and aspects such as jokes, laughter, long pauses, and external interruptions were noted.

The data were analyzed using thematic analysis as it permits the reflection of participants’ realities (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and treats data in a descriptive manner (Vaismoradi, Turunen, & Bondas, 2013), thus serving the objective of this research. Thematic analysis systematically identifies and describes themes (patterns) across data. Themes represent a specific pattern found in the data that serves the research question(s) (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Joffe &: Yardley, 2004).

Ethical considerations

The interviews started once all ambiguities had been clarified and signatures had been obtained. The children were not interviewed unless their parents consented. Both the parents’ and the children’s signatures (or in this case a written name) were needed to start the interview. The children were also informed about the research objectives and interview procedures beforehand.

School principals were contacted once approval from the director of school authorities was obtained. Similarly, teachers were contacted with the agreement of their school principals, who provided me with their contact information. As in the case of the parents and the children, interviews with the teachers were conducted after all their questions regarding the research had been truthfully answered, and after they had signed the informed consent.

All participants were informed that their participation was voluntary, and that they were allowed to terminate it at any time. They were also notified about the audio-recording. A hard copy of the informed consent and letter of intent was left with the parents, and we retained a soft copy. In the teachers’ case, it was the opposite: the informed consent was scanned and sent to them via email. Prior to the interviews, the teachers were also provided, via email, with the letter of intent.

In the findings, we were very careful not to include any data that would identify the participants: pseudonyms were used. Also, we avoided mentioning details such as school names, period lived in Lebanon, and the city of birth. For the sake of anonymity, we considered all students as males and all teachers as females, as gender was not a variable in this study. Parents were referred to using pseudo family names: Mr. and Mrs. Zain, Mr. and Mrs. Loutfi, and Mr. and Mrs. Faraj. Both students and teachers were given pseudo names. The names given to the students were: Nadiin, Wael, Adam, Bilal, Alaa, and Moussa; the names given to the teachers were: Dina, Lisa, Kristin, Emma, and Dalia.