Multicultural competency helps us know more about people that are culturally different than us and to respect and appreciate them, said Poyrazli.
“People with higher levels of multicultural competency tend to be better bosses, better supervisors, better co-workers, better teachers, and better students, to name a few,” Poyrazli said.
Study of Syrian refugee college students and other research activities
Poyrazli has expertise related to psychological sociocultural and academic experiences of college students. She particularly studies the experiences of international students, as well as refugee and immigrant students.
This expertise is what drew her to Turkey for her Fulbright year, she said. Turkey has a large population of Syrian refugees due the Syrian civil war that began in 2011. These refugees came into the country 10 to 12 years ago and many who came as children are now college students.
Poyrazli said that research related to Syrian refugee students in general tends to focus on the K-12 population, while there is limited research on college students.
Poyrazli focused her two-part research study on Syrian refugee college students, examining their psychological and academic experiences in the classroom — treatment they received from their classmates, professors, and other staff/students on campus. She also looked at possible psychosocial experiences and microaggressions they experienced outside of the campus, in the community.
She said that an overall purpose of her research is to help campus personnel who provide programming — such as in international student offices or in faculty development offices — to use this information to help faculty, instructors, advisers and other staff understand how they could be engaging in microaggressions.
Some people engage in this behavior intentionally, she said, while some engage in these behaviors without realizing. Poyrazli found that the most common microaggression students experienced was related to speaking Arabic. When they spoke Arabic on campus or in the community, they faced “angry and disgusted looks,” she said, so, as a coping strategy, students avoided speaking Arabic to avoid discrimination.
She added that students said they were labeled as “handout takers,” because until two years ago, they received a monthly allowance from the European Union for being college students. However, this funding was cut, and students were left to finance education on their own. “The public’s opinion, however, was still that they receive monetary help from the government. As a result, they reported experiencing a profound amount of financial stress and undertaking jobs that the Turkish citizens were not willing to accept,” said Poyrazli.
Poyrazli added that the microaggressions and financial stress students faced in Turkey led some to seek a third country where their life circumstances would be better.
Poyrazli said the data she gathered will contribute to the development of outreach and training programs to help higher education institutions better serve all students.
She also began a book project on multicultural counseling and therapy for which she is a co-editor and contributing author.
“The project is helping me bring many experts together to continue to work within this area, while the outcome is this great book, it has also helped me further my studies on different populations,” she said.