UNESCO Chair on Refugee Integration through Education, Language and Arts

Dr Dilara Özel Sen

Dilara Özel graduated from the Guidance and Psychological Counseling program at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul and completed her master’s and Ph.D. in the same field at Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara. During her graduate studies, she worked as a research assistant in METU’s Educational Sciences department. She also spent a semester as a visiting researcher at Humboldt University in Berlin and was a visiting fellow at Koç University’s Migration Research Center (MiReKoc) during the spring of 2021.

Dilara is a passionate advocate for researcher mental health and has founded a support group for researchers in Turkey. Alongside her academic work, she is actively involved in the field, with certifications in Somatic Experiencing Practitioner Training, Experiential Play Therapy, and Grief Educator Therapy with David Kessler.

For her Ph.D. thesis, she adapted UNESCO’s Learning to Live Together peace education program for fourth-grade students, conducting a needs analysis and pilot study in a refugee-receiving school. She is currently a TÜBİTAK postdoctoral research fellow, working on adapting the program for younger primary school children.

Research at Glasgow: Having conducted her master’s and Ph.D. research in refugee-receiving schools in Turkey, Dilara Özel has developed strong expertise in the Turkish refugee context. With peace education being a relatively new concept in Turkey, she is now expanding her perspective by exploring refugee integration approaches in diverse countries and contexts while at Glasgow. Her aim is to understand the key challenges and needs associated with refugee integration and, by collaborating with scholars at Glasgow, to deepen her understanding of effective strategies.

By combining her knowledge from Turkey with insights gained at Glasgow, Dilara plans to adapt the Learning to Live Together peace education program for younger primary school grades—first, second, and third—for use in Turkish refugee-receiving schools. This adaptation will involve tailoring the program to the unique cultural and social needs of young refugee students, as well as considering the structural dynamics of Turkish classrooms. Her goal is to create a supportive framework that fosters inclusivity and resilience, ultimately contributing to the field of peace education and offering practical tools to facilitate integration for refugee children.

Update July 2025: Dilara has completed the translation and adaptation, with full approvals, of the UNESCO Peace Education Programme for Children aged 6-12, into Turkish. Read the full resource here.

"Many thanks for the English version of the report; it certainly looks like a great achievement to do the full translation into Turkish of this important document. This is (another) wonderful example of how the UNESCO network in the UK is supporting other Member States around the world, to help achieve UNESCO's global mission."
John Carmichael - Communications and Marketing Manager for UK National Commission for UNESCO