The Roma constitute the largest ethnic minority in Europe and have a long history of social immobility, marginalisation, exclusion and discrimination (Mirga and Gheorghe, 1997). Despite the many political attempts to address these issues, the Roma people in Serbia still remain disadvantaged in key areas such as health, housing, employment and education. In terms of education today, Roma people remain highly under-represented at higher education level throughout Serbia, only 2% from the total number of Roma population. More precisely, the participation of Roma in student population is 16 times smaller than their peers in the total population of Serbia (EQUI-ED, 2012). With regards to research on Serbian Roma education, there has been a lot of interest among academics in exploring how the Roma communities in Serbia fare in school-level education (e.g. Milivojevic, 2008). However, there has been little focus on Roma people’s experiences of access to higher education. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap. Drawing on data from an on-going PhD research, this paper presents preliminary findings in response to the question: ‘what barriers and enablers Roma students report in their access to higher education in Serbia? The research employs a feminist methodological approach using 10 life history interviews to explore Roma students’ lived experiences. Drawing on Ahmed’s (2012) theories of difference, inclusion and institutional racism, the paper seeks to show how conceptions of diversity and inclusion play out in the Serbian context in relation to Roma students’ access to higher education. Specifically, the paper will seek to show findings from the research on how the context of poverty (Ringold, 2005) ,institutional and social experiences of racism, and the gendered natured of marginalization of Roma people all interact to shape Roma students’ access to higher education. In addition the paper will show what Roma students have found useful in accessing higher education.

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