Paper Short Abstract:

Recent scholarship argues that formal education is a form of power, which tacitly indoctrinates children to middle-class values. Even if these virtues are difficult to be shared by students from lower-class families, especially by marginal Roma, whose situation is burdened by institutional racism and a complex system of ethno-racial classification, too (Mészáros, 2024). Based on a long-term ethnographic fieldwork in an urban Roma ghetto in Romania, this paper tries to highlight the gap between institutional discourse and practices of the local school (based on middle-class values) and the clearly articulated expectations of the socially and racially marginal local Roma parents towards it. According to its findings, the Roma families, whose children are seen as “lazy” or “non-cooperative” by the institution, have well-defined ideas on what a “good school” (Szőke et. al., 2024) means: not a place of knowledge-transmission, but one, which teaches mostly practical issues, and where children are treated well and nicely. It demonstrates, that these families, seen as immobile by the formal education, are in fact able to give meaning to their aspirations. By overlooking or silencing claims of local Roma parents, educational institutions involuntarily re-enforce social and ethno-racial marginality, which – according to the discourse – they intend to combat.

Paper Abstract:

Many transnational policy-makers state, that providing access to good-quality education, would automatically lead to social mobility of the Easter European Roma. Anthropological tradition in the field of Romany studies have always pleaded for a more nuanced approach of the issue. Recent scholarship argues that formal education, as a form of power, tacitly indoctrinates to middle-class values, however these are difficult to be shared by students from lower-class families, especially by marginal Roma, whose situation is burdened by institutional racism, too (Mészáros, 2024).

Based on a long-term ethnographic fieldwork in an urban Roma ghetto in Romania, this paper highlights the gap between the institutional discourse of the local school and expectations of the local Roma parents towards the institution. According to its findings, the Roma families, whose children are seen as “non-cooperative” by their teachers, have well-defined ideas on what a “good school” (Szőke et. all., 2024) means: a place of transmitting (not theoretical) but practical knowledge, an institution where children are treated well.

Experiences of these Roma parents result from their individual and collective experiences on the labour market of contemporary Romania. The country became a supplier of cheap workforce for western companies, but - in a racist social climate - to many Roma is very difficult to reach even these fringes of the formal labour market (Vincze et al. 2019).

Thus, by overlooking or silencing claims of these Roma parents, educational institutions involuntarily re-enforce social marginality, which – according to their official claims – they intend to combat.