Differences Between Primary and Junior Secondary Schools’ Implementation of National School Policy: How This May Disproportionally Affect Roma Children
Author(s):
Rosa Drown (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2015
Network:
07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

07 SES 05 B, Roma: Educational Approaches

Paper Session

Time:
2015-09-09
11:00-12:30
Room:
3001. [Main]
Chair:
Francesca Gobbo

Contribution

For former communist countries wishing to apply to be members of EU, reforms of education were essential to meet EU accession requirements. It is well documented that these countries not only needed to transform their educational policies from a former communist style, but were also required to improve the social and educational inclusion of Roma children in accordance with the “Copenhagen Criteria” (Spirova & Budd, 2012).

The “EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program” (EUMAP) made a detailed study and evaluation of eight former communist countries, focussing on “equal access to quality education for Roma”.  In their report of this, EUMAP praised Romania for having made “great strides in implementing policy”(EUMAP,2007:47).  It might be expected, therefore, that Romania would have demonstrable success in improving access to quality education for Roma, yet little hard evidence supporting this has been forthcoming. Independent reports have even suggested that there has been little or no improvement in the education of Roma children, although they also agreed that more needed to be known about the situation.  (Schvey et al., 2006; Fleck & Rughinis, 2008; Șandru, 2010). I determined that it was important to undertake detailed research into what was happening at classroom level in order to shed light on the situation.  My on-going doctorate research focuses on the educational provision of a rural administrative district in Romania and looks in detail at classroom processes.

This paper focuses particularly on difficulties which disproportionally disadvantage Roma children following their transfer from primary to secondary sections of school because of their different ways of implementing school policy, including that of providing equal access to quality education for Roma children.  Five school sections were studied, three primary and two secondary, which were organised as a single “school system” under the rural district’s schools’ director, who, together with the county education inspectorate, was responsible for realising national educational policy. Differences in understanding, when implementing a policy have been known either to lead to unintended outcomes or else result in the policy failing (Fullan, 2007; Liegeois, 2007b)

The relevant research questions were:

1. What are the perceptions of teachers, parents, county and national authorities of the policy to achieve equal access to quality education for Roma? 

2. What are the practices of schools, or school sections which affect the realisation of the above policy? 

The theoretical framework is largely based on Bourdieu’s sociological “theory of practice”. I found that his approach of subjective structuralism was a particularly useful way of being able to understand the dynamic nature of Primary and Junior Secondary School structures and the way they approached the education of Roma children.  Similarly, what Bourdieu referred to as his “thinking tools” of ‘habitus’ and ‘capital’ (Grenfell & James, 2006: 152) provided a way of understanding the actions and reactions of those connected with the school community,  whether teachers, pupils, parents or administrators.

Method

The methodology of data collection was interpretative, following the flexible approach of Schwartz-Shea & Yanow (2012) which uses a combination of induction, deduction and abduction in order to achieve the fullest possible understanding of a situation. I therefore draw on both qualitative and quantitative data which complement each other and hence help to illuminate the findings. Semi structured interviews were held with teachers, Roma parents, former school pupils and regional administrators. Group interviews were held with Roma pupils. More than one hundred classroom sessions were observed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Field notes were also taken over a period of two years and documentary evidence, including national policy statements and reports, was collected. Bourdieu’s “thinking tools” of ‘field’, ‘habitus’ and ‘capital’ together with analysing the ‘doxa’ of the different school sections, were used to analyse data and to draw conclusions from them. The need to position myself as the researcher was also an important part of my methodology, especially as I am a British person seeking to understand different cultures other than my own.

Expected Outcomes

The primary sections’ approach was to teach the national curriculum only to those children (predominantly non-Roma children) whose teachers believed them to be able to cope. Most Roma children were often grouped at the back of the class and, although being given some attention by their teacher, were given less demanding activities than those required by the curriculum and, unlike their peers, rarely given homework. In the secondary sections, all children could choose where they sat in class and all were taught the national curriculum and given the same homework, whether or not they could understand the tasks that were set, or had the necessary means at home, for example, a computer, to carry out this work. Those children who had difficulty understanding the work or completing their homework, had very significantly less interaction with their teacher than the others. Many Roma children had much more difficulty than their peers in transferring between the school sections, because most had not been fully prepared for the standard of work expected of them in the secondary section. Yet in the secondary section no allowance was made for this. On the contrary, those children having difficulties in following the curriculum were given less attention than the others. The vast majority of Roma children in the secondary sections dropped-out of school before completing their compulsory years of education, usually within the first two years of transferring from their primary section. Whilst there was evidence of other factors which disproportionally disadvantaged Roma schoolchildren, the findings above illustrate how inconsistencies between primary and secondary sections of schools, in implementing policy, may cause additional problems for an already disadvantaged group.

References

Eumap 2007b, Equal Access to Quality Education Volume 2. EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program. Fleck, G. & Rughinis, C. 2008, Come Closer: Inclusion and exclusion of Roma in Present-Day Society, Bucharest, Human Dynamics. Fullan, M. 2007, The New meaning of Educational Change: Fourth Edition, Abingdon, Routledge. Grenfell, M. & James, D. 2006, Bourdieu and Education: Acts of Practical Theory London, Taylor & Francis e-Library. Liegeois, J.-P. 2007b. Roma education and public policy. European Education, 39, 11-31. Șandru, R. 2010. Roma and education in Romania: An analysis of educational problems and the actions taken to overcome them. Romani E Journal, 4, 30-45. Schvey, A. A., Flaherty, M. S. & Higgins, T. E. 2006. The Children Left Behind: Roma Access to Education in Contemporary Romania. Fordham International Law Journal, 29, 1155-1244. Schwartz-Shea, P. & Yanow, D. 2012, Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes, Abingdon, Routledge. Spirova, M. & Budd, D. 2012. The EU accession process and the Roma minorities in new and soon to be member states. In: Pusca, A. (ed.) Eastern European Roma in the EU: Mobility, Discrimination, Solutions. New York: International Debate Education Association.

Author Information

Rosa Drown (presenting / submitting)
Southampton University
Isle of Man

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