TREATING DISCRIMINATION IN ROMA EDUCATION POLICIES
Csaba Fenyes University of Pecs
Abstract:
Most evaluations emphasise that one of the biggest problems with national Roma policies is that they fail to address discrimination against Roma, but they very rarely go further than this and only recommend changing this situation. This paper will argue that this change is not likely to happen without a fundamental change in the problem description and the way policymakers view cause-and-effect
relationships on the one hand, and the basic rules of addressing problems on the other hand. We are using two major arguments to support this. First, we will show that national policies define the
problem in a way which either excludes discrimination or tries to downplay its importance. Secondly, they use a kind of targeting which is essentially incapable of addressing systemic issues such as
discrimination. Additionally, they frame the problem in a way that views the Roma themselves as the ones responsible for most of the problems they face, which may suggest that the primary goal of these
strategies is indeed framing rather than addressing the most acute problems of exclusion and discrimination. In the research, we have used content analysis on the 2011 Roma inclusion strategies prepared by the five CEE countries with the largest Roma populations. We have focused on education in this research, but believe that the results will equally be valid for other policy areas.
In: Kyuchukov, Hristo; Elena Marushiakova; and Vesselin Popov (eds.). 2016. Roma: Past, present, future. ISBN 9783862887361[16]:213-226. (pdf e-paper).