Reflections of prejudice and stereotypes towards syrian refugees upon turkestani students in turkey

Turkey has faced a huge wave of immigration from Syria recently which caused a number of social, political and economic problems. Due to the nature of ethnocentrism, several prejudices and stereotypes about Syrian refugees emerged in Turkish society. In this respect, this study aims to investigate the reflections of these stereotypes and prejudices towards Syrian refugees on Turkestani students having university education in Turkey. In this study, it was used used Focus Group Interview which is a qualitive resarch technique. Snowball sampling method was adopted for the study group consisting of 21 Turkmenistani students in Bayburt University. In order to analyze the obtained data, content analysis method was used. According to the results of focus group interviews, some prejudice and stereotypes produced through Syrian refugees such as university entrance without examination, free and privileged education are reflected upon Turkestani students and similar attitudes are also directed to them. The results showed that although Turkestani students in Turkey have not faced major cultural problems in the past due to their proximity to cultural harmony and social acceptance in Turkey, the prejudice and stereotypes towards Syrian refugees negatively affected them.