During the last years, efforts to improving educational opportunities for disadvantaged groups in East European countries (like Romania and Bulgaria) were mainly supported by EU funds and inspired by EU policy, trends and norms. At the supra level  there is a common European framework on social justice and intercultural education. Therefore, at the macro level, political rhetoric have mainly attracted researchers’ attention, due funders’ interest. At the meso level, stakeholders’ interest drawn attention to regional and local strategies, while monitoring and evaluation research have mainly focused on outputs and results and very little on impact. More specifically, “log-frame” matrix seems to shadow most of any further analysis. Although crucial for the success of program’ implementation and long term impact, the micro level analysis is under-represented in educational program’s evaluation research. School experience represents a process and a continuously reshaping outcome; it is framed by both interactional contexts and systems of representations regarding school tasks, the self, significant others (teachers, classmates, parents) and groups. Many times students perspective is ignored or insuficiently documented by teachers and researchers. Even more, school experience is mainly focusing on epistemological learning and less on ontological one. Students experience outside school is rarely used in school. Therefore we use students’ drawings and teacher’s biographical narratives to genuinely reveal gaps and differences in awareness, acknowledgement and achievement regarding self-identity and diversity in school life.

Paper grounds on empirical research carried out in three projects: MATRA project Roma educational inclusion through school improvement, jointly developed by SLO National Institute for Curriculum Development The Netherlands and Step by Step Bulgaria (2007- 2009) and two EU funded projects en Romania: Access to education for disadvantaged groups Phare RO 2003/005-551.01.02 (2005-2007) and Evaluation of the Impact and Dissemination of PHARE Programm 2006/018-147.0101.02 (2008-2009).

Using the evaluation research results (collected since 2004 on primary schools), we address following intertwined topics and questions:

·         How it functions the communication between the macro/mezo/ micro level in abovementioned projects?

·         What does it feed the gaps between student’s and teacher’s perceptions on identity and diversity?

·         What makes teachers reluctant to value diversity as a learning resource in schools and classrooms?

·         How to use students’ drawings and teachers’ narratives in order to overcome under-representation of students and teachers voices in program evaluation in education?

·         How to use program participatory monitoring and evaluation research as an opportunity for teachers’ professional development?

Theoretical framework grounds on:

1) postmodern perspective of identity building and mini-narratives within local and global contexts (Sllatery 1995);

2) distinction between epistemological and ontological learning in school (Packer 2001, Dreier 2003, Lave 1993, Wenger 1998);

3) social semiotics of drawing (Riley 2004).

Interpretative options rely on the assumption that the way children select/combine compositional elements of drawing/narratives reflect ontological texture of school life. We analyze drawings and narratives from experiential, interpersonal and compositional perspectives. “What can be seen? What is he/she telling about? What is going on? Who participates in the action suggested/ described? How children sketch different characters and contexts?”.

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