TY - JOUR

T1 - Structural dimensions of Roma school desegregation policies in Central and Eastern Europe

AU - Kostka, Joanna

AU - Rostas, Iulius

PY - 2014/6

Y1 - 2014/6

N2 - Scrutiny of the socio-economic exclusion of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe has brought attention to the widespread practice of school segregation of Romani children who are automatically placed in classes for the mentally disabled or shunted into separate and inferior schools and classrooms. It is now widely recognised that such practices adversely affect the educational development of Romani children, which in turn dramatically constrains theirpossibilities to succeed in adult life. Thus far the legislative changes and political commitments to desegregation and integration measures have delivered limited outputs and outcomes. While national programmes face implementation challenges at the local level, the grassroots initiatives are rarely mainstreamed into wider policy strategies. At the end of the day the status quo is preserved. Given that little analytical effort has been made to explain the causes of desegregation failure, this article aims to address the void. It argues that the narrow desegregation aims prevents creation of comprehensive approaches sensitive to structural dimensions of segregation and discrimination. It builds on the policy design theory in order to capture the impact of discourse and policy content on the implementation outputs.

AB - Scrutiny of the socio-economic exclusion of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe has brought attention to the widespread practice of school segregation of Romani children who are automatically placed in classes for the mentally disabled or shunted into separate and inferior schools and classrooms. It is now widely recognised that such practices adversely affect the educational development of Romani children, which in turn dramatically constrains theirpossibilities to succeed in adult life. Thus far the legislative changes and political commitments to desegregation and integration measures have delivered limited outputs and outcomes. While national programmes face implementation challenges at the local level, the grassroots initiatives are rarely mainstreamed into wider policy strategies. At the end of the day the status quo is preserved. Given that little analytical effort has been made to explain the causes of desegregation failure, this article aims to address the void. It argues that the narrow desegregation aims prevents creation of comprehensive approaches sensitive to structural dimensions of segregation and discrimination. It builds on the policy design theory in order to capture the impact of discourse and policy content on the implementation outputs.

KW - segregation

KW - Roma Minority

KW - education

U2 - 10.2304/eerj.2014.13.3.268

DO - 10.2304/eerj.2014.13.3.268

M3 - Journal article

VL - 13

SP - 268

EP - 281

JO - European Educational Research Journal

JF - European Educational Research Journal

SN - 1474-9041

IS - 3

ER -