Ambitious Education The Role of Family, School and Friends in the Development of Successful Romany Life Courses

Abstract

gary. The paper concerns a group of Roma who have been successful in escaping the grip of ethnicity-specific poverty. The authors inquire about the extent to which these persons view themselves as Roma and the extent to which they were relatively privileged or disprivileged by their parents’ levels of educational attainment. Some variations in the Romany identities assumed or accepted by the mobile respond ents are also investigated and these are related to objective and subjective aspects of the respondents’ current and especially childhood background. Predictions for respondents’ children’s identification are also analysed. The article asks what the cir