2. Methodology and the Fieldwork
This research aims to understand thoughts, feelings, and experiences of potential perpetrators and victims of discrimination in Turkey, and thus, targeting to
reach some findings will be operational in the struggle against discrimination.
The research conducted by using both qualitative and quantitative research
methods gradually.
In the first stage, a sample of 1064 people from 26 cities resembling Turkey has
been formed. The questionnaire is used as a method to learn the overall trend of
Turkey. In the first part of the questionnaire, the aim was to learn the perceived
discrimination practices of the people in the research space and their opinions
about the target groups. In this framework, two scales have been used based
on the concept of “perceived discrimination”. The first scale is “Major Experiences of Discrimination”, and the second one is the “Everyday Discrimination
Scale.”8. The first set of questions seeks to find out whether people experience
discrimination against themselves or others in the workplace, at school, in their
neighbourhood, and in-service sector. If they have experienced any discrimination, researchers asked subjects opinion on the reason(s) of the discrimination.
With these questions, research aims to understand which types of discrimination are more prominent and where and for whom they are applied more widely depending on ethnicity, religious belief/disbelief, being a refugee/migrant,
physical and/or mental disability, being young or old, gender, sexual identity9
(sexual orientation/gender identity/gender expression/gender characteristics)
and political reasons. The second set of questions examines how everyday life
discrimination expressed in behaviours. It also questions the basis on which
types of discrimination this gets out. That is to say, this research aims to learn
the prevalence and reasons of discriminatory practices such as not being respected by others, being called with humiliating nicknames, being treated as
if they were not smart enough, unreliable, lower than others and getting exposed to insulting behaviours, threat or harassment practice in their daily human relationships. The same scales in the previous question set were used as
the reasons for discriminatory practices. Finally, an extended version of the
“Major Discrimination Experiences” question set was used in order to measure the frequency of discrimination experienced by the interlocutors. While
the researchers increased the diversity of questions about discrimination in the
workplace, school, and neighbourhood, they also added questions about the
8 See. Williams, D. R. “Measuring Discrimination Resource.”, June 2016, <https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/
davidrwilliams/files/measuring_discrimination_resource_june_2016.pdf.>
9 In this report, Sexual Identity is used as a common phrase for the terms of sexual orientation, gender
identity, gender expression, gender characteristics.
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