I finished my bachelor's degree in psychology at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey (2014), followed by earning my research master's degree in psychology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA; 2016) with a major in social psychology and minor in educational sciences. Eager to conduct multidisciplinary research in order to gain a broader perspective on societal problems, I started my PhD project as part of the Research Priority Area Yield ( http://cde.uva.nl/research/rpa-yield/about.html).
The target group of this 4-year project is primary school teachers and their students, and it is supervised by Prof. dr Monique Volman of Educational Sciences Prof. dr. Agneta Fischer of Social Psychology. There is a need to investigate factors that may explain the unfavorable educational position of ethnic minority students, and that may contribute to improving their educational outcomes. With this need in mind, my research focuses on the extent to which teachers engage in multicultural education, how teachers’ approach to diversity influences ethnic minority students’ peer relationships, and their engagement with learning and school-related activities. With this project, I aim to understand the ways to mitigate the challenges that accompany diversity, and relationships between the mitigating factors. This project is hence a step towards better grasping the current state of affairs in multicultural classrooms, and therefore building a knowledge base that can help teachers gain the necessary skills and knowledge to satisfy the unique needs of students from different cultural backgrounds.