National Minorities Research Articles

Education – Language – Identity

AbstractIn our paper we explore the intricate relationship between language and identity within the Hungarian language minority residing in Slovakia, examining the patterns of identification among high school students in Western Slovakia. Focusing on upper-secondary Hungarian-medium high school students, we investigate the role of the Hungarian language in shaping identity patterns and cultural unity. Through a mixed-methods approach, combining a quantitative questionnaire survey with qualitative focus group discussions, we address research questions regarding the construction of community belonging and adolescents' attachments to their region and homeland. Our study, encompassing 414 students from five Hungarian-medium gymnasiums, sheds light on the identity formation of the Hungarian national minority and highlights divergent tendencies between different age groups. The findings are part of an ongoing state-level research project.

Efficiency of International Law Mechanisms for Human Rights Protection in Education

Objectives. The study deals with international law mechanisms for human rights protection in education. The aim of the study is to analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of international law mechanisms for human rights protection in education. Theoretical Framework: The theoretical basis of the research was made up of the scientific works of scientists, quality and qualitative indicators of research, and the regulatory and legal framework. Methods: The research employed the method of comparison, visual graphic methods, a set of methods of processing, comprehension and interpretation of information. Results and Discussion: The study established the most common types of violations in the field of education, in particular: violation of the right of national minorities to education; impossibility of choosing the language of instruction; failure to provide inclusive education; discrimination against people with mental illness. Specific manifestations of the effectiveness of international law mechanisms for the human rights protection in the field of education are singled out, in particular: increasing public awareness and transparency of government activity, etc. Research Implications: The study gave grounds to draw the conclusions regarding the difficulty of proving the existence of violations in education. Attention is drawn to the subjectivity of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the ambiguous interpretation of norms enshrined in international legal acts. Originality/Value: The research is original, based on official data and the author's own conclusions, and has practical significance.

What would environmental impact assessment look like if we started from scratch today? Designing better EIA for developed neoliberal nations

ABSTRACT After more than five decades of practice, environmental impact assessment (EIA) has failed to convince sceptics that it represents value for money. It increasingly overlaps with constantly emerging sustainability requirements. The completed assessments are extremely long, exceed the cognitive capacities of decision makers to assimilate information, cannot address motivated reasoning, and therefore inevitably lead to trade-offs that threaten the very environmental components EIA was designed to protect. In this paper, for the minority of nations with highly developed existing environmental legislation and management only, we propose three radical approaches that include: (1) the adoption of ‘satisficing’, to deliver a streamlined assessment that is good enough; underpinned by (2) better application of ‘acceptable harmrules’ embedded in existing environmental legislation in many jurisdictions to prevent significant harm to environmental media; and (3) an ‘externalities charge’ on developers (irrespective of whether EIA is required) to force more aggressive scoping through market incentives and to fund a shift towards adaptive environmental assessment and management that manages environmental outcomes. Better environmental protections could be delivered using a far more streamlined EIA process, associated with the creation and maintenance of more accurate and comprehensive datasets that can provide better evidence for emerging artificial intelligence tools.

Language and Literature Education Field: Some Aspects of Teaching in Primary Schools of National Minorities

The article explores teaching tools and certain aspects of teaching the Ukrainian language in primary grades, focusing on the instruction in the language of indigenous peoples/national minorities in general secondary education institutions in Ukraine and abroad. It presents the experiences of teachers, methodologists, authors of educational and methodological materials, and contemporary domestic and foreign scholars, based on a comparative analysis. Current trends in publishing textbooks and teaching aids are examined. The article highlights the experiences of Ukrainian and foreign educators regarding the relevance of educational support and the potential for engaging each child in meaningful individual and socially significant educational, research, and inquiry activities. It is determined that in textbooks and aids for the Ukrainian language and reading for grades 1-4, a concept has been pre-planned that considers the specifics of all sections and topics of the language and reading curriculum. The article proves that independent work effectively integrates the content of the studied material from language and literature, allowing for quick comprehension of the textbook, section, or topic, as well as enabling students to read and provide correct answers, with appropriate recommendations formulated. It is noted that modern realities require working with digital textbooks, necessitating additional teacher training to utilize them effectively. The article identifies the problems and prospects for further research, which include the development of digital skills for students and teachers, the need for educational institutions to be equipped with digital devices, and the formation of motivation among students, teachers, and parents for learning the Ukrainian language both in Ukraine and abroad.

The right to education in the mother tongue for Ukrainian refugees in Romania according to international and national law

Since the outbreak of the Russian invasion in February 2022, millions of Ukrainian citizens have sought refuge in Romania, with a significant number of people still remaining in the country as of the latest reports. Romanian government data indicate that by April 2024, approximately 154,617 Ukrainian refugees, including 50,000 school-aged children, were residing in the country. Before this crisis, Romania had established robust educational language rights for its Ukrainian minority of around 40,000 citizens. This study rigorously examines these pre-existing language rights within Romania’s legal framework, focusing on public education provisions. Central to the inquiry is whether the comprehensive language rights afforded to Romania’s Ukrainian minority could be extended to the Ukrainian-speaking refugees. The study begins with an introduction contextualizing the refugee crisis and outlining the existing legal framework for minority language rights in Romania. The legal analysis covers constitutional and sub-constitutional provisions, alongside with an examination of international agreements such as the bilateral treaty between Romania and Ukraine, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Special emphasis is placed on education provisions, including curriculum design, textbooks, language of instruction, and decision-making. By addressing these pivotal questions, this study contributes to the theoretical discourse around the personal scope of minority language rights in Europe and offers a nuanced insight into Romania’s legal framework on minority language education. It also seeks to elucidate how Romania’s legal commitments accommodate both established minority communities and newly arrived refugees with similar linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Further sociological research is needed to explore the implementation of Ukrainian-language education to the benefit of the Ukrainian refugees, which was beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless, Romania possesses all the necessary legal elements to serve as a truly best practice model in Europe for organizing and ensuring good quality education in the mother tongue for Ukrainian refugees.

Ethnopolitical Trends of Party Building in Kazakhstan and China

The role of political parties in multi-ethnic states is quite complex, as they should be focused not only on political governance at the level of the state as a whole, but also on promoting national unity in interethnic relations, forming tolerant cooperation and interaction between different ethnic groups. Aim. This article aims to take the operation and development of political parties in multi-ethnic countries such as Kazakhstan and China as examples to study the role of political parties and to study cases from the practice of their activities in maintaining national stability, promoting social harmony, and protecting the interests of small ethnic groups.Tasks. One of the tasks of political parties in multi-ethnic states is to integrate different social interests and ensure that all ethnic groups have a voice and are represented in the decision-making process at the national level.Methods. Comparative analysis is used to compare models of multi-ethnic governance in different countries or regions, and to analyze the role and effectiveness of different political parties in these models. This will help to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different governance models and identify best practices. It also analyzes the reasons for the successes and failures of different countries and political parties by analyzing their historical practices of multi-ethnic governance. This will help to understand how political parties have responded to ethnic conflicts and governance challenges throughout history.Results. The research paper pointed out that the policies developed and implemented by political parties in multicultural countries in support of the cultures of different ethnic groups, the protection and promotion of the languages, religions, traditions and cultural identities of different ethnic groups, comply with the UN standards and principles on these issues. However, as shown by the political and SWOT analysis of the statutory and program documents of the political parties in the countries studied, there are problems.Conclusion. Certainly, political parties are making efforts to ensure equal opportunities and access for all ethnic groups to the economy, education, employment and so on, in order to promote the creation of a fair and inclusive society, while ensuring the civil rights of minority ethnic groups, or as it is called in international legal literature “national minorities”.

Virtual Aunts and Uncles: Identity and Community in a Diasporic National Minority

Abstract The past decade has seen mass emigration of Hungarians from Serbia to the kin-state and Western European countries. This has resulted in new ways of understanding what it means to belong to the community, both empirically and in terms of theorizing it, and both for those in Serbia and those abroad. This article claims that there are virtual platforms where members of this ethnic community (re)create their identities, and that this happens through relating to certain common themes. For this reason, I analyze the common themes of two humorous Facebook pages – namely, rurality, food, language use, ethnic others, and crossing borders – popular among Vojvodina Hungarians. The article argues that these elements of identity connect members of the community who live in Vojvodina and those who have emigrated to the kin-state or diaspora. Therefore, in order to unpack the complex dynamics of identification of a national minority community with high diasporic tendencies, an approach that connects the above topics to the concepts of community, nostalgia, home, minority, and borders, and in more general terms the lens of national minority and diaspora studies is needed.

Hungarian Political Parties and Addressing the Issue of national Minorities in 1989

Hungarian Political Parties and Addressing the Issue of national Minorities in 1989

Minority identity and place-name use in a Slovak–Hungarian bilingual settlement

AbstractThis paper discusses the relationship between minority identity and place-name use in Hrušov/Körtvélyes. The research location is in the Rožňava/Rozsnyó district of the Košice/Kassa region, near Slovakia's border with Hungary. 79% of the village's population belong to the Hungarian national minority, while 20% of the population identifies as Slovak. The community can be described as bilingual, as they use both Hungarian and Slovak, depending on the situation and context. Most of the settlement's place name stock consists of toponyms in Hungarian, with Slovak toponyms mainly appearing only on maps from the second half of the 20th century. However, even the residents who claim Slovak nationality and/or Slovak mother tongue hardly know and use the Slovak toponyms. This sociological study of place names, including 10% of the population (34 people), proves this. The strong minority identity is reflected in the fact that the community of Hrušov/Körtvélyes uses Hungarian toponyms and has not adopted the artificially created Slovak toponyms. In this context, it is safe to conclude that learning and revisiting the use of toponyms can strengthen identity, as it strengthens the ties to the community.

Sinicizing China’s World Muslim City: Spatial Politics, National Narratives, and Ethnoreligious Assimilation in the PRC

Abstract The nation-state is as much a narrative and ideational project as it is a spatial-territorial one. In the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping’s calls to “revitalize” China’s traditional culture, “Sinicize” religions, and “rejuvenate” the Chinese nation reflect a broader effort to reframe the national narrative and strengthen Communist Party control. This article examines the implications of Xi’s revisionist nationalism for China’s fifty-five minority nationalities, in particular the Hui, one of ten Muslim minority groups. It does so by analyzing the rise and demise of World Muslim City (WMC), a development project in western China that mobilized Hui identity and traditions for economic and diplomatic purposes. WMC was facilitated by a multicultural national narrative and by a fragmented authoritarian political system that for many years fostered policy improvisation, and deviation, at the local level. Its suspension underscores the increasingly anti-Muslim, anti-religious tenor of PRC policy, as evidenced by the Sinicization campaign that was a proximate cause of WMC’s demise. Its demise also highlights ongoing efforts to reassert CCP control over government, business, and the Party’s own rank-and-file. The fate of WMC furthermore reveals the spatial dimensions of Sinicization, and of Chinese cultural governance past and present. To paraphrase theorist Henri Lefebvre, Sinicization entails “spatial practices” that impose Xi-ist “representations of space” on lived “representational spaces,” from mosques and businesses to theme parks and luxury resorts.

The Concept of Flexible Learning for Teaching Art Disciplines in Elementary Schools for National Minorities in modern PR China

The concept of flexible learning is increasingly important in contemporary education systems, particularly for teaching art and aesthetic disciplines. In China, this approach is especially relevant in schools serving national minorities, where diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds necessitate a more adaptable and inclusive educational framework. This article aims to explore the implementation of flexible learning for teaching art and aesthetic disciplines in modern elementary schools in China, focusing on the experiences and strategies used to organise the educational process for representatives of national minorities. When writing the article, the methods typical for researching papers in the field of general education and pedagogical comparative studies were used, in particular: literature review, case studies, document analysis, comparative analysis, observation. The article results. Flexible learning refers to educational approaches that provide students with choices regarding how, what, when, and where they learn. It emphasises adaptability to individual learning needs, preferences, and cultural contexts. Implementing flexible learning in art and aesthetic disciplines involves several strategies to accommodate the unique needs of national minority students (such as cultural and artistic integration, use of technology, community involvement and flexible learning environments) and is widely used in PR China in regions with significant populations of national minorities, providing valuable results. However, implementing flexible learning for art and aesthetic disciplines in schools for national minorities comes with challenges, including resource limitations and the need for special programs of teacher training activities including cultural sensitivity, which are the point of constant attention of the Chinese government. The study concludes that the implementation of flexible learning for teaching art and aesthetic disciplines in modern elementary schools in China, particularly for national minorities, demonstrates a commitment to inclusivity and adaptability in education. By integrating bilingual education, technology, community involvement, and flexible learning environments, these schools can provide a more personalised and culturally relevant education for their students. Despite the challenges, the benefits of this approach are significant and include promoting cultural preservation, artistic expression, and social cohesion.

The Use of National Minority Culture in Tourism Development

In our tourist travels, we seek experiences in locales distinct from our places of residence or work. Tourism developments strive to fulfil this desire by showcasing and making tangible some unique local characteristic, thus attracting visitors to a specific place. In resource-poor areas, one of the simplest and least investment-demanding ways to achieve this is by turning a unique element of local culture into an attraction and celebrating it. This does not require costly infrastructure development, but it can still attract tourists. Our study focuses on these local celebrations, which are most often referred to as festivals, feasts or competitions. In the first part of this paper, our goal is to draw attention to a specific group of local festivals, events that focus on the culture of national minorities. Along with examples from Hungary, we present in more detail two festivals: one in Southwest Hungary’s Feked and the other in Southeast Hungary’s Deszk. In the second part of the study, we categorise local festivals based on the cultural elements they highlight. According to my research, four basic categories can be determined. Festivals can be created to celebrate a well-identifiable local cultural or economic phenomenon. There are local celebrations aimed at preserving or reviving disappearing or vanished local cultural elements. There are festivals that emphasise newly invented traditions. Finally, events based on humour or randomness can also be the basis of a tourist attraction.

Языковое законодательство в межвоенной Польше как элемент национальной политики: историография проблемы

The paper deals with the language policy of Poland as an element of national policy. The international treaties on the protection of national minorities, the Constitution of Poland of 1921 and the laws adopted on July 31, 1924 “On the State language and working language in State institutions and self-government institutions”, “On language and organization of school work for national minorities”, “On language in courts, prosecutor’s office and notary institutions” are considered. In the Second Polish Republic, one third of the population consisted of national minorities, for whose rights the Polish Sejm adopted these laws. The laws provided for the limited use of the languages of national minorities – Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian. In certain cases, Polish civil servants were required to use the languages of national minorities in their activities. Due to their inconsistency and half-heartedness, the laws were not actually implemented and caused discontent both among representatives of national organizations and among the majority of Polish political circles. Among historians and in journalism, the laws “On Language...” also caused a discussion. Most researchers believe that the Polish language legislation did not aim to actually improve the situation of national minorities, but only to imitate their protection in order to form a positive image of a “democratic” Poland in the international arena.

Secure in Diversity? Transborder Ethnicity, Transnational Minority Activism, and Ontological (In)Security in the European Union

Abstract The liberal vision of the early 1990s envisaged the eastward extension of the Western European security community formed during the Cold War, based on intergovernmental cooperation and integration around the shared norms embodied by the European Union (EU), Council of Europe, and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Yet, transborder ethnic ties have remained a security concern within the “New Europe.” As well as the external challenges posed by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, growing transborder nationalism exhibited by Hungary and other states has also become a focus of tensions within the EU. These intra-EU concerns, I argue, should be understood primarily as an issue of ontological security and as part of a multilevel security dilemma implicating states, EU institutions, and national minorities as security-seeking non-state actors. The article focuses on the Federal Union of European Nationalities—a transnational umbrella NGO that in 2013–2021 led an unsuccessful European Citizens’ Initiative named “Minority SafePack” (MSPI) calling upon the European Commission to legislate on firmer guarantees of minority rights within EU member states. Applying the ontological security lens to the study of MSPI, I illustrate how it reflects specific claims voiced by transborder kin-minority activists consistently over the past century, before analyzing the counter-securitizing arguments deployed against it by states. Although MSPI was approved with a large majority within the European Parliament, the Commission ultimately rejected it. I consider why this was the case, as well as the implications of the rejection for the in varietate concordia concept that supposedly undergirds the European project.

Hierarchies of Elitism among Urban and Rural Palestinian Students in Israel

This research investigates Palestinian students residing in both urban and rural areas who are enrolled in an elite high school located in a mixed Arab-Jewish city in northern Israel. We investigate how these divergent backgrounds influence their experiences and perceptions of their elite identities and how elite identities within national minority sub-groups (urban and rural) impact the formation and perpetuation of intra-group hierarchies. We find that elite identities are influenced by geographic positionality, that hierarchies exist within the same minority elite and that these factors shape both personal and collective identities.

Treatment of Non-Muslim Minorities in Islamic Nations: Prophetic Principles

This study aimed to clarify the prophetic rules concerning the relationship with non-Muslims in the Islamic society. The descriptive approach is used, and the findings revealed that the Prophetic controls in this regard are intellectual and cultural controls such as endorsing religious pluralism and ensuring learning and education without corruption or promoting atheism, as there is no compulsion in religion while guaranteeing the right to build and restore churches and places of worship. The study also reveals political and human rights controls such as respect for a decent life, and the sanctity of the human soul, which cannot be robbed or diminished except under legal conditions. These controls appear in prominent rights such as the right to citizenship, the right to political and professional work, and the right to justice. There are also economic and financial controls such as justice in acquiring rights and performing duties in a way that guarantees non-Muslims their economic stability. These include the right to protect money, freedom to work and earn, the right to guarantee the treasury, and their right to alms from rich Muslims. The results also showed social and family controls such as good family cohabitation and maintaining social ties and bonds. These controls are represented in the right to cohabitation, and the right to marry and divorce.

Dissidence of Ahmet Şerif Şerefli: The Trauma of the «Revival Process»

The article explores the destructive effects of forced Bulgarianization on the identity of a national minority, illustrated by the life and career of Ahmet Şerif Şerefli, a Bulgarian writer of Turkish descent who endured the ‘Revival Process’ policies in the 1980s. The analysis focuses on excerpts from his memoir «We Were Born Turks and Died as Turks» and his essay collection «First and Foremost, They Shackled Our Thoughts». These works highlight the significance of the Turkish language and Turkish identity. Şerefli’s memoirs argue that maintaining one’s native language is crucial for preserving Turkish identity amidst attempts to distort it. The memoirs serve as a means of articulating, processing trauma, and striving to repair a fractured identity. The writer’s traumatic experiences are reflected both thematically and structurally in his memoirs, which resemble a series of short epic narratives without chronological order, forming a mosaic of stories about life in Bulgaria, imprisonment, and Şerefli’s musings on his craft, the fate of his people, language, and identity. This fragmented structure underscores how trauma influences the way memories are expressed.

Slovenian Poet and Austrian Writer: Maja Haderlap’s «Hybrid» Identity and Overcoming Post-Memory Trauma

The cоntemporary literature of the Slovene minority living in Austrian Carinthia is a special phenomenon that combines national and multicultural components, as well as bilingualism. A striking example of this is the work of M. Haderlap (b. 1961), who writes poetry in Slovenian and prose in German. Her German-language novel «Engel des Vergessens» («Angel pozabe», 2011) is about the collective trauma of the past experienced by the Slovenian population who participated in the anti-fascist resistance during the Second World War (physical extermination and deportation to concentration camps), had a wide resonance in the European German-speaking sociocultural space. The plot is based on the personal story of the writer’s grandmother and father, who went through the Gestapo and Ravensbrück. One of the ways to express his attitude to a tragic topic and at the same time overcome the consequences of the post-memory mechanism was the choice of language for the author. By creating a novel in the language of the national majority on a topic that is «inconvenient» for its speakers and painful for the national minority, Haderlap, firstly, makes an attempt to distance himself from personal experiences, and secondly, to attract the attention of the general Austrian public to historical injustice, to evoke fellow citizens an impulse to repentance. The hybrid identity of the writer, who perceives her bilingualism as an undeniable advantage of creative self-expression, reflects the real trends in the literary development of Europe: the monolingual paradigm is being replaced by a focus on poly-and heteroglossia.

Materialization of spatial identity in Slavonia and Baranja’s linguistic landscape changes

The linguistic landscape is an essential aspect of determining how language materializes in our surroundings. It is especially important in multilingual communities, as it reflects their identity. The linguistic landscape changes over time due to various factors, such as changes in politics, economics, and the national minority population. Study aims to explore how language manifested in the cultural landscape of Slavonia and Baranja, how it changed over time. Linguistic signs can also reflect the spatial identity of the population in the investigated periods (and its changes). Research compares the linguistic landscape of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with the contemporary period. We used old postcards as sources for the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and conducted fieldwork for the modern period. The research involved analysing a vast corpus of linguistic signs in the cultural landscape. Research showed that the linguistic landscape, both in the past and present, is visible through various inscriptions on shops, craft stores, state institutions, and street names. Official inscriptions on public institutions in Croatia are written in the Croatian language, and in ethnically diverse areas, these inscriptions are bilingual, but not to the extent allowed by the Croatian Constitution. Homogeneity or heterogeneity of the linguistic landscape users determines its appearance. Croatian is the primary language in most of inscriptions. However, the status and dominance of other languages have changed, depending on the complex political and linguistic past of the region. The study has confirmed that the linguistic landscape reflects both the spatial identity as well as the heterogeneity and multilingualism of the linguistic landscape in urban and rural areas.

DIGITAL LEARNING SUPPORT ELEMENTS IN THE ONLINE TEACHING OF GERMAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

In recent years, pedagogical design and practice have undergone a forced transformation that has brought many innovative methods and tools to the implementation process. The transition to online education has demanded new infrastructural solutions that have temporarily replaced traditional classroom practices. Most teachers seem to have adapted well to these new challenges. Learning support platforms and online teaching elements had to be harnessed by teachers who, in many cases, acquired this knowledge on their own, in awareness of their importance. Our study examines the need for digital learning support elements in primary schools of the German national minority in Hungary. Our research tools comprised an online questionnaire survey conducted in 2022. The goal of our study was to identify the problems that teachers faced in the transition to online teaching during the period of distance learning introduced due to the COVID pandemic in 2020 and since; the forms of support teachers received nationwide; and the measure of success in their work as language teachers. We also looked at the factors that influenced the digital elements being used. Finally, we examined whether teachers are still willing to use online learning support tools when returning to face-to-face teaching.