Scaling-up Effective Social Cohesion Programs: Integration of Syrian Refugee Children into Turkish System

Currently, there are over 1 million Syrian children of age 5-17 in Turkey. Since 2016, the Turkish Ministry of Education has been developing policies to facilitate the integration of Syrian refugee children into the Turkish education system. Project PICTES (Promoting Integration of Syrian Children into the Turkish Education System), an EU funded project, represents the largest policy initiative to achieve the Turkish government’s integration goal. The proposed study aims to complement this initiative with a proven effective extra-curricular module to be delivered to both refugee and host children. A scale-up of the module will be piloted within the second phase of PICTES. The module aims to strengthen cohesion among host and refugee children and has been tested in a randomized evaluation in Turkey. The module has been shown to lower peer violence and ethnic segregation, and improve key cohesion indicators, such as out-group trust and reciprocity.