The Dual Expectations Gap. Divergent Perspectives on the Educational Aspirations of Spanish Roma Families

Abstract

ABSTRACT The extremely high rates of school failure among Spanish Roma children are a cause of great concern, and frequently the target of policies and projects both at the local, national and European level. There is still a general perception that the Roma overall lack interest in studies, coherent with the dominant discursive framework that tends to essentialise Roma people and view their practices and choices as primarily motivated by their culture. We challenge this view by offering a more complex account on the educational expectations of Roma families. Based on extensive fieldwork in the Barcelona area in relation to a research project directed by the authors, we found what we defined as a dual expectations gap: on the one hand, the gap between the families’ expectations on their children’s education and the obstacles they encounter for fulfilling these expectations; on the other hand, the gap between the families’ expectations and the schools’ perceptions on the families’ expectations. We argue that the concept of educational expectations needs to be placed in a broader context in order to better understand what lies behind school failure among an ethnic minority group that is racialized and socio-economically disadvantaged.