This study draws data from an asynchronous discussion to which teacher candidates (TCs) from France, Turkey, and USA contributed as part of their participation in a semester-long telecollaboration in 2017. The analysis focused on the contributions of TCs (n=34) from Turkey and explored how they represented Syrian refugees in their responses to a question about refugees and immigration in their country. Using critical discourse analysis, the study examined metaphorical expressions in participants’ representation of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Findings present six metaphorical constellations about Turkey’s acceptance of refugees fleeing the Syrian war and these metaphors involve three ideological tensions that were dominant in TCs’ discourse: (a) similarity and togetherness/difference and separation, (b) gift/scarcity, (c) openness and bridging/spreading and disruption. The paper discusses these tensions in relation to the earlier research on the use of metaphors in discourses about immigrants and provides implications for educating teachers to work with refugee children.

DOI: 10.1016/j.linged.2022.101053
ISSN: 0898-5898