Antigitanismo y cambios en los derechos y condiciones escolares de la infancia gitana en España (1970-1995)

Abstract

This article studies the recent history of rejection of Gypsy children in Spanish state schools during a time of significant social and politics changes and after centuries of sustained educational exclusion. The analysis deals with events occurring in a thirty-five years period during which there was a transformation in the political treatment and social perception of the gypsy question. The article focuses on the increasing numbers of Gypsy children joining the school system from the 1980s onwards and the subsequent series of anti-Gypsy protests. The article identifies, on the one hand, the various factors that contributed to the increase in ethnic conflict in state schools; it shows, on the other, the increasing failure of anti-Gypsy protest, as it unleashed a social reaction against the violation of fundamental child rights.