Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > Structural dimensions of Roma school desegregat...

Links

Text available via DOI:

View graph of relations

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

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>06/2014
<mark>Journal</mark>European Educational Research Journal
Issue number3
Volume13
Number of pages14
Pages (from-to)268-281
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

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 their
possibilities 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.