Realising Roma rights through a high-stakes history test: Secondary school students narrating the Swedish Roma past, present and future

Olle Nolgård

doi:10.14324/herj.18.2.05

Abstract

Building on theories of historical justice, reconciliation and transformative change, this article investigates how 293 secondary school students make sense of the difficult past, present and future of the Romani in a national history test. Using qualitative and quantitative text analysis, this study seeks to explore whom students foreground as agents of change in regard to the Roma past, present and future. Considering the past and looking to the future, the inquiry led students to narrate four scenarios: no change; a regression to a past state of no rights; a development for the better; a future free from oppression. While the students underscored the importance of a shared responsibility for Roma rights, they stressed the nation state as the single most important agent of change for Roma rights in the present and future. Against the backdrop of justice and change, this study argues that while students realise and recognise Roma rights through their narrational practices, and thus may become empowered to act for a just future, these narratives also re-establish historical cultural and ethnic group boundaries which potentially may disempower young learners.

Highlights

The last decades have seen a proliferation of calls for historical justice, that is, the desire to right past wrongs, in both post-conflict societies and more established democracies (Neumann and Thompson, 2015)
In Sweden, such calls have led to reconciliatory investigations of abuse and human rights violations towards the Swedish Romani minority in the past and present. These investigations resulted in state-sponsored knowledge production through White Papers and teaching materials for schools (Government Offices, 2010, 2011, 2015). In this new era of reconciliation, indigenous history was established as new statutory content in secondary school history education, and the syllabus stated that students ought to obtain ‘knowledge about the cultures, languages, religion and history of the national minorities (Jews, Roma, indigenous Samis, Sweden Finns and Tornedalians)’ (Skolverket, 2011: 11)
In what has been described as an era where nation states are in decline (Olick, 2007; Elmersjö, 2015), this cross-section of students expresses a strong belief in the interventionist nation state through their narratives of historical change

Summary

Introduction

The last decades have seen a proliferation of calls for historical justice, that is, the desire to right past wrongs, in both post-conflict societies and more established democracies (Neumann and Thompson, 2015). Forcing students to consider the past, present and future of the Swedish Roma minority in a national test may be interpreted as a way for the authorities to direct attention to state redress through history education, but it accentuates that the knowledge of this past may be regarded as important knowledge in schooling Regarding this notion, research has argued that a focus on difficult pasts and the development of minority rights – examples of historical change – in the local context may empower students to make decisions and become action-competent citizens in the present and future (Barton, 2001a; Ahonen, 2012; Osler, 2015; Lücke, 2016). The hermeneutical readings were inspired by Ricoeur’s notion of a ‘hermeneutical arc between explanation and understanding’, that is, a critical or alethic understanding of hermeneutics (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009: 92; Ricoeur, 2016)

Findings

Discussion

Notes on the contributor