School Education, Minorities and Life Opportunities. Roma Inclusive School Experiences

This text is the fruit of the Roma Inclusive School Experiences (RISE) project, financed as part of the 2016 call of the Justice and Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (REC) (2014-2020), with the topic: Action grants to support national or transnational projects on non-discrimination and Roma integration in the European Union. This transnational project lasted for over two years, and involved the creation of a partnership between the Department of Education Studies ‘Giovanni Maria Bertin’ at the University of Bologna - Alma Mater Studiorum (Italy), as the international coordinator; the Institute of Education of the University of Minho (Portugal); the Development and Education Centre Novo Mesto (Slovenia) and the Istituto degli Innocenti in Florence (Italy). The project arose from an institutional framework that was determined by the promotion of Article 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, by supporting related state policies and national strategies through innovative actions focusing on inclusive education for Roma children and the enactment of the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies. The Roma make up the largest historical-cultural minority in the EU, but also the group which is most subject to inequalities in access to work, education, housing and healthcare. Antigypsyism continuously produces and reproduces negative stereotypes and discriminatory practices, often institutionally legitimised by policies that exclude or limit access to the rights of citizens. Discrimination against Roma population is reflected and amplified among children and adolescents that grow up in particularly fragile social conditions, and with a very wide range of unmet rights. Among them, the right to education is still a challenge for many countries in the EU. Low education levels, widespread illiteracy among Roma communities, together with racism in its various forms are the main obstacles, with an impact on access to the job market, the use of services and active participation in public life. But the quality and quantity of Roma school attendance and performance are often influenced by the educational strategies and teaching models implemented in schools and by school organizations: whether adopted deliberately or not, models and strategies and organization showed how they can either promote or discourage success and inclusion of Roma children in school. What most characterised the RISE project, and could even be defined as its main ‘ingredient’, was the simultaneous construction of an inclusive model of school where the concept of ‘inclusion’ is considered a common good. An inclusive school is deeply linked to the quality of the school system, and is a resource from which all pupils, teachers and parents should benefit. For this project, Roma and Sinti children and adolescents have been, in some way, the unit of measurement for a welcoming school. In other words, their ability to feel good at school has become the yardstick of an environment’s ability to promote the wellness of an entire community. For this reason, the inclusive model developed by the RISE project has potential to be applied to many other contexts and goes well beyond the integration of children belonging to minority groups. The text is divided into a few different sections: theories on inequality with specific reference to the educational system; a sort of ‘inclusion dictionary’ with a look at key concepts useful for the creation of an inclusive school model; the action-research methodology, which was consistently used throughout the project; a detailed description of the actions promoted locally in Italy, Portugal and Slovenia; and a final assessment. The book is intended to be a contribution towards a more sustained reflection and towards the possibility of modifying professional practices.