A Phonological Study of Discrimination and Ethnic Inequality: Case Study of Kurdish University Students' Experiences

Discrimination and ethnic inequality against the Kurds have been the subject of concerns and public debate both inside and outside of Iran for decades, but the ethnic experiences of the Kurds within the social fields of Iran including universities have rarely been the subject of empirical studies. So, we applied the exploratory approach to the study of the ethnic lived experience of Kurdish students in  the Iranian universities, focusing on the experiences of discrimination and inequality in four universities including Tabriz, Tehran, Allamah, and Kurdistan. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 Kurdish students. Interviews data were analyzed by thematic analysis, which resulted in 11 main themes and 11 sub-themes. The findings showed that university's experiences for Kurdish students include significant aspects of discrimination, inequality and ethnic exclusion in both formal and informal spheres of university.