Internationalism, migration, and education: Pluralistic disposition in multilingual and multicultural contact zones-Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Abstract

Cyprus has always witnessed an influx of refugees and migrants as a conflict and contact zone and become a destination country for many international students for the last two decades. In the age of an unprecedented diversity and accentuated internationalist theories worldwide, pluralistic pedagogies embellished with nationally monoglossic discourses have become iconized pressing trends in education precipitating a dichotomous doom-loop vis-a-vis multifaceted parameters of learning environments. Linking critical race theory with internationalism, document analysis, semi-structured interviews, field notes, observations, and informal chats were deployed for an elaborated scrutiny of students' perspectives through a normative-humanistic lens. The results signified that in conflictual contexts, policy-making may surpass basic humanistic norms such as equity and social justice where parental involvement, sustainable integration, discursive ideological orientations, coproduction among stakeholders, Western-propelled content revision, preparatory language courses, and teacher education predominantly reconceptualize indispensable aspects of curricula. The findings are especially conspicuous for social partners, policy-makers, and educators.