Perception, language, and information gaps: Parental involvement in refugee children’s destination language learning in Türkiye and Germany

This paper examines how monolingual school contexts shape refugee parents’ involvement in destination language education in Türkiye and Germany. Drawing on a multiple case study of Istanbul and Hamburg, we analysed 75 semi-structured interviews with key informants, teachers, school leaders, parents, and students. Building on parental-involvement literature and situated within the project’s ecological framework, we identified three interrelated mechanisms that structure the family–school relationship: perception, language, and information gaps. In both contexts, refugee parents report strong educational aspirations, yet their engagement is constrained by deficit-oriented interpretations of involvement, limited linguistic mediation, and uneven access to system knowledge. The comparison shows that macro-level arrangements condition these meso-level processes: Türkiye’s centralised, resource-strained system narrows opportunities for dialogic engagement, while Germany’s decentralised, better-resourced system offers more institutional entry points without fully overcoming monolingual norms or navigation burdens. We argue that parental involvement is less a function of willingness than of institutional invitations and enabling conditions. Strengthening refugee parents’ participation requires shifting from unilateral to relational power in school–family interactions and designing structured information pathways. Findings offer transferable insights for other destination countries managing large-scale refugee inclusion.