Reproduction of social inequality through Czech educational system has been researched and described in its various forms and consequences on multiple occasions. (Matějů, Straková, Veselý (eds.) 2010; Vojtíšková (2011), Greger, Straková, Simonová eds. (2015)). For some, inclusion policy has been a hope for subverting this development, which i attempt to study.

In my research I focused on advancement of inclusion policy in education, which has (beside European legislation tendency) its political origin in Appeal of ECHR D.H. and other vs. Czech Republic, where Czech Republic has been prosecuted for the of indirect discrimination of Roma pupils. (D. H. and Others v. Czech Republic; European Court of Human Rights, 2007; Varvařovský, 2012; Minow, 2010) I analysed what  role the stakeholders play in drafting and implementing educational policy and what a stakeholder could do to act in anti-discriminatory (and inclusive) way.

In the prevailing discourse of the educational landscape in Czech Republic, discrimination based on ethnical and racial bias is often denied. Furthermore theories of intersectionality (Crenshaw, (1989), Annamma, Ferri, Connor eds. 2015) and internalized oppression (Freire 1970, Derman-Sparks (2010), Schmidt (2009), David, Derthick (2014); Pyke (2010), Batts (2005)) are far from known or reflected upon. Even though they might present a key in explaining the large-scale school low performance of Roma and socially disadvantaged pupils and could help to uncover deeper diversity lines beneath the racial and economic. 

In this analysis I will refer to different levels and manifestations of discrimination in theories of internalized oppression and submission. (Schmidt, 2009 ; Derthick, 2014; Pyke, 2010; Batts 2005). They describe situations of discrimination, which are often perceived as normal, because they are constant. It can be also linked to Freires description of “dehumanization” in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire 1970). Because of the so called modern racism these manifestations are not truly acknowledged, the reasoning being that  some –the majority- believe to be living in a post-racial society. (Derman-Spars, 2012). In contrast to that assumption, recent research on intersectionality of race and ability (DisCrit) describe subtle forms of bias and their remaining force.  Broderick and Leonardo (2016) describe the notion “Goodness” and “Smartness” as central values of who deserves social and cultural capital.

“The ability line is a larger slice in the cross-cutting processes that always already include class, race and gender. It represents the attempt to consolidate an analytics of power in education in order to illuminate the ways schools segregate the “smart” and “good” from those intellectually deficient and morally suspect in myriad ways that pass common sense.” (Broderick, Leonardo (2016) p.66)

Building on that, in this paper I will elaborate on how exclusion is being justified, without using the ethnical or racial arguments.

Influenced by the qualitative research based on in-depth interviews and narrative approach to interviewing (Hermanowicz, 2002; Kohler Riessman, 1993; Gee, 2014; Rubin & Rubin 2012) I focused on the reflection of expectations towards the parents’ ability to support their children’s learning as part of structural discrimination. As for the choice of methodology, I relate to stakeholder analysis (Schmeer, 2000; Varvarsovszky & Brugha, 2000). As for investigating the problem, I chose the Stakeholder Analysis, which offers deep insight into different interpretations of the problem. The analysis included 28 interviews with a variety of stakeholders from two towns with socially excluded areas (teachers from primary and practical primary schools, principals, parents, social and NGO workers tutoring children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, Roma and Non-Roma respondents) and experts. The data were collected from 2015 to 2017.

In the analysis I realized, that in the Czech educational context anti-discrimination is only rarely seen as a precondition for inclusive education. Although most respondents even teachers recognize the discrimination against Roma, they refuse to acknowledge the link between ethnicity and a low performance in schools. Rather, they reason that this failure is due to the parents’ inability to provide a stimulating learning environment at home. Furthermore this reasoning shows strong and deep-rooted unreflected and unspoken expectations towards parents’ contribution to children´s school success. As one special teacher from my research describes the situation: „if the family is supporting the child, even mentally disabled in larger scale, it is not problem to include him in the collective. But it the child does not have support in the family, it is very difficult, even impossible.“ Previous studies suggest that the Czech educational system has a tendency to make ethnicity invisible in order to reproduce the idea of an ethnically homogeneous environment. In this environment students with A migrant background try to posture themselves as normal and problem-free. One of the explanations for this tendency the authors present in (Jarkovská, Lišková, Obrovská, 2014) is the strongly rooted belief that it is an individual is responsible for their own success or failure, which has been promoted by the neoliberal discourse. Arguably, Individual responsibility on the one hand can be seen as empowering, but on the other hand, it does not reflect the structural bias in our educational system. This lack of reflection is one of the symptoms of an internalized dominance. Instead of realizing the weight of ethnicity and a lower social-economic status, and their collective link to social and cultural capital, which is needed in order to flourish in the system, it is the individual who is blamed for their failure.

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