Mitigating the Social Exclusion of Refugee Children: An Intervention on Perspective Taking

Last registered on April 29, 2019

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Mitigating the Social Exclusion of Refugee Children: An Intervention on Perspective Taking
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003974
Initial registration date
March 08, 2019

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
March 08, 2019, 4:03 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
April 29, 2019, 8:30 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
European University Institute

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2018-04-19
End date
2020-08-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Since the beginning of the Syrian War in 2011, Turkey has received over 3.5 million Syrian refugees, including nearly 1 million children. Syrian refugee children face social exclusion and in-school violence. Socially excluded individuals are less likely to exhibit prosocial attributes. These outcomes may justify even further social exclusion and intergroup violence. This study evaluates a unique educational intervention that aims to mitigate this cycle by fostering “perspective-taking” among host and Syrian students in schools that recently received a significant number of refugee children. The intervention involves a specifically designed curriculum that teachers are trained on to deliver to their students. We will measure the effect of the intervention on intergroup violence, social exclusion, and prosocial behavior.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Alan, Sule. 2019. "Mitigating the Social Exclusion of Refugee Children: An Intervention on Perspective Taking." AEA RCT Registry. April 29. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3974-2.0
Former Citation
Alan, Sule. 2019. "Mitigating the Social Exclusion of Refugee Children: An Intervention on Perspective Taking." AEA RCT Registry. April 29. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3974/history/45589
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention involves an extra-curricular program designed to foster perspective-taking among host and Syrian refugee students in southeastern Turkey. After receiving training at the beginning of the school year, the teachers were given about 5 months to implement the curriculum. The general framework for the topic each week is provided by a multidisciplinary team of pedagogy consultants and a group of elementary school teachers under the supervision of the R&D division in the Ministry of Education. An art and media team from Bilkent University created several animated videos and reading materials used in class exercises for the students to improve their ability to put oneself in others’ shoes and to understand what others might be thinking and feeling.
Intervention Start Date
2018-11-01
Intervention End Date
2019-04-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Bullying
Social Exclusion
Prosocial Behaviors
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Bullying:
We measure bullying in two ways:
1) Self-reported bullying from students; 3 measures include bullying that occur by students within the classroom and the same 3 measures are for bullying that occur by students within the school. We will use the overall average of these six measures.
Whether 0, 1, 2, or more than 3 students in the classroom (school) that speak poorly, bother, and scare the respondent.
Whether 0, 1, 2, or more than 3 students in the classroom (school) that make fun of the respondent.
Whether 0, 1, 2, or more than 3 students in the classroom (school) that hit the respondent.
2) We will also ask teachers to assign each pupil a behavior score.

Social Exclusion:

We will use a network centrality measure as an outcome variable. Networks are self-reported and we will use at least these two network measures:
1) Best friend
2) Helpful friend

Prosocial Behaviors:

• Altruism: Giving in dictator game. Altruistic behavior is elicited with a simple dictator game (Benenson et al., 2007).

• Trust and reciprocity: We measure trust with an incentivized experiment similar to the one used in Sutter and Kocherab (2007).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
1. Self reports of empathetic concern.

2. Self reports of perspective taking.

3. Survey reports of social norms.

4. Self reports of impulsivity and patience in social circumstances.

5. Survey reports of outgroup specific views.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
We will collect a number of secondary outcomes to help us understand potential channels. These are
1. Self reports of empathetic concern.

2. Self reports of perspective taking.

3. Survey reports of social norms.

4. Self reports of impulsivity and patience in social circumstances.

5. Survey reports of outgroup specific views.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study is a clustered randomized controlled trial. The unit of randomization is school. There are 40 treatment schools and 40 controls schools. The sample includes a total of 7,636 officially registered students. We stratified randomization on a measure for school average absenteeism and by province (Sanliurfa and Mersin). Treatment teachers received training for a specially designed curriculum at the beginning of the academic year and they have been given about 5 months to implement it in their classrooms.

Experimental Design Details
The study is a clustered randomized controlled trial. The unit of randomization is school. There are 40 treatment schools and 40 controls schools. The sample includes a total of 7,636 officially registered students. We stratified randomization on a measure for school average absenteeism and by province (Sanliurfa and Mersin). Treatment teachers received training for a specially designed curriculum at the beginning of the academic year and they have been given about 5 months to implement it in their classrooms.

Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
School
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
80 schools
Sample size: planned number of observations
7,636 students (officially registered at baseline)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
40 schools control and 40 schools treatment
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Attached as a seperate document.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Essex Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2018-04-19
IRB Approval Number
IRB00000522; FWA00004881
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials