In last roughly 5-8 years, we do anthropological researches in the field of school difficulties of children from the excluded localities (mainly Roma children) in Czech republic. Originally, we saw this subject as a question of cultural mismatch, essentially a conflict of values. However, our research experiences forced us to abandon this simple model. Roma culture and connected problems cannot be seen in isolation. It needs to be considered in the context of its relation to the majority culture/ population. And the relationship towards the majority is defined by exclusion – from school, from job market, from communities. This exclusion has deep historical and economical roots and it means life in poverty and without much perspective for the future. The relationship of the state and of the majority towards the exclusion is complicated or even ambivalent. Racism is officially criticised and the phenomenon of exclusion is considered as an issue, however the state is rather clueless in how to solve the issue. During the last years, the political discourse was moreover dominated by the motive of load that unemployed people and other recipients of social benefits represent for the national budget to the point that they were (without much foundation) painted as the main cause of national economic crisis. Local communities are scared by tensions between the majority and the excluded heightened as the result of economic situation (high unemployment) and migration of Roma groups that started after privatizations of state or municipal – owned housings. The solution of the exclusion problem is undertaken now actively mainly by several NGOs, sometimes municipal governments, teachers and social workers, psychologists and educational counsellors. Their roles are also ambivalent as they provide help while sometimes (some of them) being seen as causes or bearers of responsibility for the situation.

All those helping professions enter into the complex of exclusion, help to formulate it, structure it, try to solve it and articulate it in the process. They also have to defend themselves and their position in the complex, make some sense of the whole situation. And now the core question of our research is: what concepts and folk-theories they employ for it? Their work contains many cognitive and speculative activities – based on descriptions, categorizations, operations that have immediate practical consequences. Since it always takes part in live social interactions, it is also very important how their excluded clients participate in it.

We often encountered the problem of „adequate reaction“ of the excluded towards the offered help. In our paper we concentrate on expectations that help providing professionals have regarding Roma and other socioculturally disadvantaged people. What kinds of cognitive constructs these professionals employ regarding the indigent and how it influences their decision-making and how their help is then understood by its recipients?
A main theoretical framework we employ the schema theory of Strauss and Quinn which we try to merge with psychoanalytic approach, especially Freud's analysis of anxiety and ways of its transfer on external objects.

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