Although recent (sociological and ethnographic) approaches on post-socialist transition of the Roma in Eastern Europe see it as a matrix of social conditions (marked by dimensions like access to labour market, access to public services, quality living conditions etc.) (Szalai – Zentai eds. 2014), little attention is paid to education when grasping the phenomena of downward mobility within this ethno-racial group.

Based on a long-time fieldwork started in 2011, this research claims to understand how relocation of a one-time Roma colony from Romania during the 1970ies and 1980ies engendered pauperization and increased long-time social inequalities during the times of post-socialist transition. In doing so, a special focus is given to education, educational opportunities and experiences of community members with school, as – in my view – these influence choices and chances in the labour market and (indirectly) shape living conditions, too. By following life-events of two-three generations (Roma grandparents, who were born and lived in the colony, their children, who have but faint memories of the relocation, and grandchildren, who cannot remember the past), I intend to understand how schooling, and especially experiences with schooling was intertwined with other elements of the matrix (job opportunitites, access to services etc.) and what was the role of education in marking the social condition of this group?

Pierre Bourdieu: The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1989. Michael Burawoy - Katherine Verdery: Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Post-Socialist World. Rowman - Littlefield, Lanham - Boulder- New York - Oxford, 1999. Szalai, Júlia - Zentai, Violetta (eds.): Faces and Causes of Roma Marginalization in Local Contexts: Hungary, Romania, Serbia. Central European University, 2014.