Teacher voices on teaching students with a refugee background in Greece

•This study investigates teachers’ experiences of teaching students with a refugee background in public schools in Greece.•Teachers experience several challenges while teaching students with a refugee background related to micro, meso, and macro level factors.•Teachers adopt a variety of instructional strategies and resources to promote refugee-background students’ learning and adjustment.•Teachers discuss the need for support and inclusion.•Teachers offer recommendations on the improvement of the education system to enable the inclusion of students with a refugee background.•Teachers have found value and meaning in teaching students with a refugee background. Global developments on migration have created new challenges in many education systems with regard to the inclusion and education of students with a refugee background during the last decade. This study aims to investigate teachers’ experiences and views on teaching students with a refugee background in Greek public schools. Following a qualitative design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine teachers. The thematic analysis used extracted seven core themes: teachers’ first feelings, challenges in teaching students with a refugee background, positive experiences from teaching students with a refugee background, facilitations for students with a refugee background, refugee-background students’ difficulties, teaching methods, and recommendations. Overall, the results revealed that despite their positive experiences, teachers have also experienced numerous challenges in teaching students with a refugee background due to various reasons that can be attributed to micro, meso, and macro level factors. Based on teachers’ recommendations, this study argues for the need for structural improvements in the Greek education system to further support the inclusion of students with a refugee background.