Care or education? „Double-track“ nature of system in negotiating interventions in life and equal access to education of Roma children

Author(s):

Dana Bittnerová(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

Roma unequal position in society is a legacy of the past. At present, it is being deepened. Just the Roma are often threatened with social exclusion. This also translates into the situation of education and upbringing of children from Roma families. There is a transparent discussion of the question of discrimination in education. (Amnesty International, 2010). In fact, many Roma children are put at a disadvantage by the social and economic conditions in which they grow up. Since 1989, social differences have been deepening in Czech society. Along with social exclusion, unemployment and spatial segregation also cause a significant fall in life conditions. Many families are confronted with existential problems that are also accompanied by negative socially pathological phenomena (alcoholism, gambling, etc.) (Moravec, 2006) .

The task of reducing the handicaps arising from the social and economic situation of the families and children’s access to education is assumed, among others, by the Czech state, its system of care for and protection of children and its educational system. It is of major importance that this system was established in the conditions of Communist society that guaranteed some basic welfare conditions and had specific instruments of intervention at its disposal. It based them on a guided cooperation of authorities, schools and educational facilities (Víšek, 1999). The need to coordinate intervention in education is being formulated at present, too. However, the communication between the relevant authorities and schools sometimes seems difficult. Although these institutions agree in their approach to the two crucial categories care and education, they understand the accentuations and meanings of both categories differently.

The presented contribution wants to unveil and interpret the concepts of care and education adopted by actors in various positions of the state-controlled system of the care and education of children (the staff of social care departments, teachers, and the staff of the pedagogical and psychological consultancy centres). It is our ambition to explain the barriers that bring about discrepancies in the coordination of joint interventions, which causes, to a certain degree, a change in the importance of education as a way with which to integrate Roma children into majority society. We want to highlight the fact that within the state policy of the care for child or within the state-run system of help, there may be isolated institutions that no longer support each other. This is due to the inertia of the system on the one hand and change in the nature of the problems and possible ways of their solution, on the other.

Method

The contribution is based on a field research with a focus on the topic of Roma education. It is carried out by the following research team: Bittnerová, Doubek, Levínská. (Bittnerová, Doubek, Levínská 2011, 2013; Doubek, Levínská, Bittnerová 2014). At present, the research is supported by the grant project of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic „Decision-making processes of helping professions in the sphere of intercultural relationships“ (GA ČR 2012-15; P407/12/0547). Since 2008, it has been under way in a selected region of the Czech Republic. The region is typical of a low population density, repeated internal migration, low degree of industrialisation, unsuccessful or incomplete post-Communist restructuring in the region, and high unemployment. These characteristics enhance the tendencies towards Roma social exclusion and establishment of excluded localities. The field research is being carried out repeatedly by the rapid assessment method. It is based on research techniques of participant observation as well as informal and semi-structured interviews. The presented contribution will be mainly based on an analysis of semi-structured interviews, using the knowledge of social and cultural context of Roma life in the region, which will contribute to the holistic (complex) understanding of the topic. The contribution is largely based on an analysis of interviews with social workers of the civil service and teachers as well as employees of educational facilities. The method of segmentation and coding in the programme Atlas.ti was used. To answer the research questions, we mainly used open coding, laying stress on interpretative codes that headed towards the categories of care and education determined in advance. Our research was inspired by Lakoff‘s theory of ideal cognitive models. These are complicated wholes that may be partly analysed in some cases, but whose parts may be hidden. (Lakoff, 2006). It was substantial for our analysis that cognitive models are a source of prototype phenomena that generate categories, unlike the classical idea that categories are sets and classes with identical properties. Cognitive models determine how we understand and interpret phenomena and how they influence our decisions and activities.

Expected Outcomes

The approaches of actors (teachers and social workers) to the intervention in the sphere of care, education and upbringing of the Roma (children from the families threatened with social exclusion) are influenced by the modernist concept of childhood (Aries, 1973) . Within it, childhood is seen as period when it has to be protected, freed from existential problems, or ensured by the protection and care of the adults. The above tension is the substance of two alternatives of the cognitive model or a prototype modernist childhood that we analysed by the helping professions (helpers). The difference lies in the understanding and correlation of the category care versus the category of education. Logically, educational workers lay emphasis on disciplining and integrating an individual into society. On the other hand, the social care workers, whose task is to protect a child, understand childhood as a period of safety in the family environment. The existence of these two alternatives of the cognitive model of the prototype modernist childhood has an impact on the decision-making processes of the helping professions. Under the burden of real existential problems of families and households in social exclusion, social workers support the child as a family member or support its place in the Roma community. On the other hand, teachers insist on the importance of childhood as a time of preparation for adulthood, while school is a way with which to take the child out of social exclusion. At the same time, school is for them a greenhouse from which they cannot see as far as the excluded locality. Due to the changed conditions of its establishment, the system that is to deal with the task of child protection and development in general stops working as such. System barriers are being created that may generate different effects.

References

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Nedokončený úkol. Romští žáci v České republice stále čelí překážkám ve vzdělání.: Vzdělání je lidské právo [online]. 1.vyd. London: Amnesty International Publications, 2010 [cit. 2015-01-04]. EUR 71/003/2009. Dostupné z: http://www.amnesty.cz/soubor-319 ARIES, Phillipe, L’Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime. Paris : Édit. du Seuil, 1973. BITTNEROVÁ, Dana, David DOUBEK a Markéta LEVÍNSKÁ. Funkce kulturních modelů ve vzdělávání. Vyd. 1. V Praze: Fakulta humanitních studií Univerzity Karlovy, 2011, 308 s. ISBN 978-808-7398-180. BITTNEROVÁ, Dana, David DOUBEK a Markéta LEVÍNSKÁ. Socializace dítěte ve vyloučené lokalitě: schéma děti si dělají, co chtějí. Urban People: Lidé města. Praha: Fakulta humanitních studií Univerzity Karlovy, 2013, roč. 15, č. 2. Dostupné z: http://lidemesta.cz/index.php?id=4 DOUBEK, David, Markéta LEVÍNSKÁ a Dana BITTNEROVÁ. POMOC A POŘÁDEK: kulturní modely v pomáhajících profesích. FHS: Praha 2014. LAKOFF, George a Mark JOHNSON. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, 276 p. ISBN 02-264-6801-1. LANGMEIER, Josef a Zdeněk MATĚJČEK. Psychická deprivace v dětství. Vyd. 4., dopl., V nakl. Karolinum 1. Praha: Karolinum, 2011, 399 s. ISBN 978-80-246-1983-5. MORAVEC, Štěpán. Nástin problému sociálního vyloučení romských populací. HIRT, Tomáš a Marek Jakoubek "Romové" v osidlech sociálního vyloučení Plzeň : Vydavatelství a nakladatelství Aleš Čeněk, 2006 s. 11-69. ISBN 80-86898-76-8. ŠOTOLOVÁ, Eva. Vzdělávání Romů. 2., rozš. vyd. Praha: Grada, 2001, 84 s., [8] s. obr. příl. ISBN 80-247-0277-0. VÍŠEK, Petr. Program integrace – řešení problematiky romských obyvatel v období 1970 až 1989. LISÁ, Helena. Romové v České republice, 1945-1998. Vyd. 1. Praha: Socioklub, 1999, 183-218. ISBN 8090226078.

Author Information

Dana Bittnerová (presenting / submitting)

Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Education

Psychology Department

Praha

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