The Experience of First Grade Kurdish Students in Dealing with School Discourse

The purpose of this study is to narrate the difficulties of cultural transition between three cultures of family, classroom and education system for a first grader Kurdish student when beginning primary school. This research applied a critical autoethnography approach and the data were collected from three sources. The first experience was lived experiences of the first researcher as a first grader; the second the narration of experiences from current first graders as expressed by the researcher as their teacher; and the third the experiences of 21 teachers and mothers. The data analysis was conducted based on the principles proposed by Ellis and Buchner. When a Kurdish child enters school and classroom culture, s/he does not find many of the cultural elements of his or her family, including language, customs, and cultural values. With the help of her mother and teachers, she often learns the escape routes to success and promotion without internalizing many of the values ​​of school culture.