The Influence of Social Capital on the Educational Attainment of Roma Persons: Evidence from a Qualitative Study in Romania

As the largest ethnic minority in Europe, Roma persons are among the groups with the lowest levels of educational attainment. In Romania, the country with the highest number of Roma persons of all the EU Members States, the situation is even worse, each higher level of education revealing an increasing gap between Roma persons and the general population.Positioned within the framework of Social Capital theory, the current chapter explores the influences of micro- and mezzo-level social networks on educational attainment of Roma persons, trying to explain some of the mechanisms that perpetuate the gap between them and the general population, in terms of educational attainment.Drawing on a qualitative bottom-up study of Roma persons’ experiences of belonging in society, we analysed the interlocking influences of bonding and bridging social capital on the interviewees’ educational attainment. The results of the study point out that both forms of social capital have an important impact on the educational attainment of persons in vulnerable groups, although in different ways, and sometimes they can be mutually reinforcing, depending on the prevailing social arrangements, in either keeping the persons engaged in education, or drawing them away from their educational paths. The results also show that in circumstances of intersecting vulnerabilities, a noticeable imbalance between agency and structure is produced, which corrodes the foundational principles of equity and affects the equality of opportunities.

Counteracting the Schools’ Demon: Local Social Changes and Their Effects on the Participation of Roma Children in School Education

The aim of the article (The empirical material leading to the present chapter results from the research effort “MigRom—The Immigration of Romanian Roma to Western Europe: Causes, effects, and future engagement strategies”, a project funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme under the call “Dealing with diversity and cohesion: the case of the Roma in the European Union” (GA319901). I also used the results and experiences of earlier fieldworks starting with 2000 in Bighal (the name of the localities were changed in order to respect the identities of the people) that were financed through Open Society Institute, Visegrad Funds, CERGE-EI through GDN and WIIW, respectively Inclusion 2007 through PHARE 2004. Earlier version of the article was presented at the GLS Conference in Nicosia (Cyprus) in 2017. The article was finalized in the framework of a visiting research programme at TARKI-POLC receiving funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 730998, “InGRID-2—Integrating Research Infrastructure for European expertise on Inclusive Growth from data to policy”.) is to inquire into the interconnectedness of large number of factors that carry the opportunity and possibility of improving school participation of Roma children in Romania.I argue that the inherent deficiencies of the educational system, starting with the structural constraints and ending with the psycho-social context in which Roma (or minoritized, marginalized, vulnerable) children learn, can be and are challenged by initiatives, strategies or processes that fall out of the immediate range of the strict framework of the educational system. Bourdieu used the Maxwell’s demon as a metaphor to illustrate the reproduction of socio-economic inequalities in the framework of school system. But this ‘demon’ might be challenged with more or less success if we step out and look for possible ‘tools’ to counteract this demon. Two such cases are presented in this chapter. One is a project implemented with and by the local Roma community using external financing and the other one is the participation of the members of the communities in international migration and use of remittances. I will emphasize that independently of the type and amount of the mobilized resources the individuals and/or communities are able to create and proactively make good use of path-departing opportunities through mechanisms of redefining and changing contextual constraints thus improvements can be observed in the school participation of the Roma children (PS. PS. The article was written before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. Its effects seems to neutralize the positive impact of the above mentioned processes: the slow steps taken in improving the socio-economic situation of the Roma seems to be stopped; prejudices and ethnic hatred seems to be stronger; access to services for Roma communities get more difficult, including to education: in this context, a further research question is how on-line schooling changed or will change the participation of Roma children?).

Roma Population in the Spanish Education System: Identifying Explanatory Frameworks and Research Gaps

This chapter makes a literature review based on the Grant and Booth qualitative systematic methodology of the studies about the educational situation of the Roma in Spain, with an wider, extended scope that allows to compare the findings with those conducted on other countries’ Roma populations. Studies on the Roma educational situation in Spain are hindered by the lack of official, periodical statistics, having to rely on sample-based surveys and ethnographic studies. In spite of the inaccuracy of the studies all of them show, as a general picture, a staggering educational gap between the Roma and the rest of society which is common to all Western countries. Most of the studies on Roma education have concentrated in this negative aspect. Numerous theoretical frameworks have been developed to explain this staggering education gap. All them acknowledge the phenomenon as a multidimensional one but for heuristic purposes they can be ordered along an endogenous/exogenous factors continuum depending on how much they stress the weight of factors stemming from characteristics of the Roma ethnic group itself or, on the contrary, of the majority non-Roma society. The literature review has also identified an emergent critical current that sees this studies focused on educational underachievement as a sharing a common essentialist bias that helps to reinforce the stigmatization of Roma and have turned to focus, instead, on the study of academic success among the Roma. Although this emerging field is very promising, our review has identify several significant research gaps in this regard: a lack of longitudinal studies, a lack of studies on the Roma upper and middle classes and a lack of studies on Roma students in post-compulsory education, particularly the university level. This article encourages researchers to fill this gaps with the conviction that the knowledge obtained can help combat the negative stereotypes and the self-fulfilling prophecy effect that approaches focused on Roma underachievement may have.

Duality of Humans: The Wish to Learn and Not to Learn

The segregated nature of education for the Hungarian Roma has been well-documented. Solutions to overcoming this segregation are often focusing on adding education interventions tailored to Roma youth. We argue that although education can be empowering, it can also be used as a tool to maintain the status quo. Education is dualistic and paradoxical in that it can both empower and enslave. In this chapter we use a philosophical lens to examine how the dualistic nature of education and humans can cause impediments to equal access to quality education for the Hungarian Roma. We identify some of the real obstacles to providing education to Hungarian Roma and disadvantaged youth, outline the philosophical underpinnings of these obstacles, and propose potential solutions. We use a school that has had success in providing educational tools for Roma and disadvantaged youth, MÁV School in Budapest, as a model to explain both the paradoxes and the solutions to overcome these paradoxes. Our goal is to provide insight into the educational situation for the Hungarian Roma and to make space for the reader to implement different attitudes and strategies to succeed in creating a sustainable model of education for Roma and other marginalized youth.

Key Factors to Educational Continuity and Success of Ciganos in Portugal

The goal of this article is to analyse the impact of specific public policies on the school trajectories of socially vulnerable Ciganos (Gypsies/Roma) who reside/live in the Metropolitan Areas of Lisbon and Porto. Through carrying out qualitative research, the analysis of key factors will allow us to understand the reasons behind school continuity and educational success of Ciganos, as well as the identity (re)configuration processes associated with the education paths of these individuals. We find that trajectories are not only intertwined with public policies and programmes, but also with other explanatory factors inherent to the individual, to the type of support he/she receives from his/her family, the presence of key figures in their lives, and the importance of peers and institutional factors inherent to the way public schools operate.

The Multiple Stories in Finnish Roma Schooling

Regardless of the good reputation of the Finnish basic education system, Finnish Roma children fall behind the overall average in their performance of academic skills: Roma children face more challenges completing basic education and have more repeated school years. Furthermore, compared to the average, Roma youth apply less for upper secondary education and thus their general level of education remains low. However, looking at Roma education solely through problematic representations only provides a partial picture. In this article, based on two separate sets of fieldwork among Finnish Kaale Roma, we examine how teachers, Roma activists and mediators perceive the educational trajectories of Finnish Roma children and youth. The article seeks to scrutinize Finnish Roma schooling within the framework of the Finnish National Policy on Roma (NRIS). The analysis highlights the multiplicity of voices in the field, discusses the possibilities, and thus problematizes the single-aspect discourse on Roma education. Many countries in Central and Eastern Europe struggle with school and residential segregation, but Finnish Roma face different challenges.

Correction to: Educational Situation of Portuguese Ciganos: Social Changes versus Social Continuities

The original version of the Chapter was inadvertently published without incorporating the author’s proof corrections. The chapter has now been corrected and approved by the author.

Inclusion or Exclusion: UK Education Policy and Roma Pupils

Education is widely recognised as a key factor in improving social mobility and improving life chances. Therefore, this is fundamental to UK education policy which aims to improve outcomes for all children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. As a result of expansion of the European Union over the past decade, there has been an increase in the number of Central and Eastern European Roma families settling the United Kingdom. Together with indigenous Gypsies and Travellers, Roma families remain some of the most marginalised and disadvantaged families in the UK, with Gypsy and Roma children having the poorest educational outcomes of all pupil groups. An inclusive educational philosophy underpins the UK educational system, however, there is a tension between current austerity measures and outcome driven education policy and the principles of inclusive practice. Whilst there are examples of good practice and inclusive educational experiences for Roma children, some barriers and exclusions are also evident.

From “Unsettled Fortune-Tellers” to Socialist Workers: Education Policies and Roma in Early Soviet Union

This chapter embeds Roma identity formation in the politics of early Soviet Union, by examining the role schools played in delineating boundaries of belonging and the sense of nationhood. I analyze education policies and politics towards minorities in the 1920s and ‘1930s through textbooks in Romani language from the time. I show that textbooks, often through educating basic grammar to children, sought to alter their identities from “unsettled fortune-tellers” to working Roma. Roma way of life was equated with oppression of the old, pre-revolutionary times, while new, Socialist life that Roma were to become part of was characterized by equality and work. What was seen as the traditional Roma way of life was incompatible with the goals of the state, and schools were to “transform” Roma children into productive Socialist workers. Socialism, therefore, was seen as the emancipation and empowerment Roma needed in order to leave their “backwards” habits in the past.

Segregated Schools, “Slow Minds” and “Must Be Done Jobs”: Experiences About Formal Education and Labour Market in a Roma Community in Romania

Based on a long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this study applies the cultural-ecological theory to understand reasons for making and maintaining a segregated school in a Romanian town, and those community forces which track and maintain Roma children there. As findings indicate, creating and sustaining such an institution reflects the flipsides of Romanian national policies, which due to the financing strategies and centralized curricula—involuntarily—block the chances to provide quality education to marginal groups. Tracking and staying of Roma children into such schools is a result of their parents’ ambivalent experiences with formal economic activities and formal education. Experiences with work and schooling shared by this urban group of Roma reveal that parents have clear expectations towards school: transmission of practical knowledge, good treatment and isolation of the school problems from family life, which not always can be fulfilled by the educational units.