Roma Families Research Articles

Literacy cubed – focus on Roma families

Literacy cubed – focus on Roma families

How do vulnerable youth complete secondary education? The key role of families and the community

ABSTRACTThis article demonstrates how the engagement of families and other community members in decision-making processes in a school may prevent early school leaving among vulnerable youth and simultaneously increase their enrolment in secondary education. Based on a large-scale, EU-funded study, this article focuses on the case of one school located in a deprived area inhabited mainly by Roma people – one of the vulnerable populations most affected by early school leaving – where a specific egalitarian participatory process of Roma families was implemented. According to the analysis of the collected data, this participation contributed to a reduction in student dropout rates during primary education, led to the implementation of compulsory secondary education in the same school, and increased the numbers of students who graduated from secondary school. These achievements transformed the educational and social prospects of vulnerable youth who were following the path to failure and who now dream of continuing their studies. Furthermore, these youth are acting as role models for younger children in primary education, helping to prevent school dropout and early school leaving from early ages. The case shows how the community participation in decision-making processes transformed the climate and expectations regarding education in the neighbourhood.

Without Space: The Politics of Precarity and Dispossession in Postsocialist Bucharest

The eviction of families from historically nationalized and recently restituted houses in Romania is tied in complicated ways to postsocialist transitional justice policies. Delayed enactment of restitution legislation and inconsistent application leave families, and neglected houses, in a precarious state. As families remain in place, they create a politics that pushes against dispossession. Evidence of this push comes from a study of Roma families, who are arguably the most marginalized of Romania's low-income peoples. Theoretically, we draw on Butler and Athanasiou's understanding of precarity and dispossession and Askins's emotional citizenry, from which we find a glimmer of hope in the everyday performance of the political among threatened families.

Roma families and children's health

Roma families and children's health

Attitudes and practices of pre-reading and early childhood literacy promotion among family physicians in Romania

Pre-reading and early childhood literacy skills are important for brain development and fundamental to a child’s long-term cognitive and social well-being. As such, the fostering of these skills is an important preventive health measure. Family physicians can play key roles in encouraging parents to routinely read with their children. However, in Romania, early childhood literacy screening and promotion are not currently integrated into medical practice. This paper summarizes mixed-methods research into the feasibility of implementing a physician-promoted early childhood literacy programme in Romania based on the American ‘Reach Out and Read' initiative; it describes and evaluates a small-scale implementation of a pilot early childhood literacy programme, Citesc Zilnic (‘Read Everyday'), in 15 medical practices. Results indicate that most Romanian family physicians recognize that early childhood literacy is important for child development, but do not screen for early childhood literacy skills, nor promote early childhood literacy as a preventive medical strategy. With institutional and cultural adaptations to a ‘Reach Out and Read'-based model, this research concludes that a high proportion of family physicians are very interested in a programme to screen for and promote early childhood literacy and may also find strong potential for promoting the basic concept of preventive health measures to the Romanian public, going beyond the initial goals of an early childhood literacy-promotion programme.

‘It’s good enough that our children are accepted’: Roma mothers’ views of children’s education post migration

The discrimination of Roma groups across Europe has been highlighted by several international organisations. For many, poverty, racism and their children’s systematic exclusion from education are ‘push’ factors when deciding to migrate. This study explores Roma mothers’ views of their children’s education post migration and their attitudes to education more broadly, by adopting an intersectional framework and examining issues of difference and belonging as experienced by Roma mothers and their children. While Roma mothers recognised the value of education for social mobility, they remained aware of the limited resources they could draw upon, in the absence of desirable economic and cultural capitals, and as a result of their ethnicity, social class, gender and ‘undesirable migrant’ status. There was a perceived hopelessness in relation to the chances that Roma children have to overcome their marginalisation through schooling, pointing to the need for dedicated policy interventions when working with Roma families.

Book Review on „Romanian Family – Social Evolution and Contemporary Challenges”

Publishing the book Family - Social Evolution and Contemporary Challenges justifies its importance from the very beginning, through its scientific quality and the current nature of the topics presented in the book. Further, it becomes a landmark work given the fact that for the Romanian conjugal space, the scientific literature describes the general marital couple, in theoretical terms, framing conjugality in its classic, features of functionality. From this point of view, the novelty of the book derives from the fact that the topics approached are placed in a modern and postmodern context regarding the new structure of conjugal cohabitation, using social and legal arguments up until the legal alternatives for marriage. Therefore, from a different perspective, the new conjugal perspectives developed in Romania more as first tendencies, target the conjugal relationships with contractual attitudes. For this type of conjugality, the relationships between the partners have an individualist orientation, reason for which the legislative is asked to provide specific legal framework that would better secure their patrimony, would establish financial rules for both partners and would ensure easy access to dissolution and sharing goods. This is the reason why, since 2002, Romania has had 3 projects of legalizing the consensual union, starting from the possibility of legally authenticating the relationships between two heterosexual partners and, in the case of the last two legislative proposals, until the possibility of legalizing the relationships between the partners, regardless of their sexual orientation. How to cite: Vlad, L. (2017). Book Review on Romanian Family - Social Evolution and Contemporary Challenges. Revista Romaneasca pentru Educatie Multidimensionala , 9(1), 121-124. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18662/rrem/2017.0901.09

Care-full failure: how auxiliary assistance to poor Roma migrant women in Spain compounds marginalization

ABSTRACTIn Spain, the national and local authorities boast in recent years about their progressive programs for the integration of Roma migrants from Romania. Many state efforts to work with Roma on their integration are specifically directed at women. Economic integration into the waged labor market is considered a major goal as it, supposedly, leads to the empowerment of Roma migrant women while also securing decent standards of living for entire families. This article argues that integration programs adversely result in the further discrimination and exclusion of those they pretend to relief. This adverse result is produced through a two-tier intervention in the lives of Roma families. The caring state works with a general category of ‘vulnerability’ for targeting populations, in which Roma migrant women are specifically incorporated through designated social programs. The performance of Roma as the subject–object of these programs is carefully evaluated. According to these evaluations, Roma women often fail to meet the normative standards of ‘good mothers’, ‘decent wives’, and ‘diligent workers’. Subsequently, to deal with ‘failing subjects’, the disciplining state, a-la Foucault, inflicts an array of penalties on Roma women and their families: cut-offs of social benefits, evictions from poor dwellings, withdrawal of children’s custody, and forced removals to Romania. We thus argue that initiatives by the caring state (and civil society) often prescribe or go hand-in-hand with repression from the correcting state. In welfare states, social programs can thus conclusively ‘evidence’ existing stereotypes about marginalized Roma families and about women in particular.

On the threshold: becoming Romanian Roma, everyday racism and residency rights in transition

ABSTRACTThis article examines the reaction of welfare state actors and ‘Romanian Roma’ migrants to the political environment on migration in the UK. Based on the ethnographic fieldwork between January 2013 and March 2014, the article focuses on how processes of everyday racism infused understandings of the legal framework for European migrants’ residency rights. The article first explores how state actors developed ideas about ‘Romanian Roma families’ as opposed to ‘Romanian-not-Roma families’ in a context marked by pervasive uncertainty about legal entitlements, welfare restructuring and decreasing resources. Second, I draw on new migrants’ accounts to identify their perceptions and understandings of discrimination placed within their previous experiences of racism and state violence. The article argues that processes of racialisation are subtly enfolded into everyday life shaping the narratives through which both welfare state actors and new migrants understand their situated experiences and future plans. The article reveals the small and mundane practices that reproduce racialised hierarchies which maintain the notion of ‘Roma’ as a group with particular proclivities and the affects for their socio-legal status as European migrants in the UK.

Making Ends Meet. How Roma Families Living in Poverty Cope

AbstractLiterature on how Roma families cope with precarious living conditions and social exclusion remains very limited. Out of all the national minorities and ethnic groups in Croatia, the Roma undoubtedly have the most difficult social position characterised by a high degree of poverty and social exclusion. Based on recent fieldwork, the aim of this article is to explore the coping strategies different Roma populations in Croatia employ to meet their everyday needs. Acknowledging the different forms of interconnected, interdependent and context-specific capital that together constitute advantage and disadvantage in society (Bourdieu 1986), this study analyses Roma’s access to economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital. Along with discrimination and racism, Roma’s limited access to different forms of capital explicates the necessity of household-based, work-based, kin-based and aid-based strategies among some families living in poverty, especially in light of stricter social welfare policy measures that have been recently introduced.

The (im)plausibility of racism in Europe: policy frameworks on discrimination and integration

ABSTRACTRodríguez Maeso and Araújo analyse the reproduction of a dominant understanding of racism in policy discourses of integration and discrimination used by monitoring agencies in Portuguese and European Union (EU) institutional contexts. More specifically, they question the political concern over racism and discrimination vis-à-vis the idea of Europe ‘becoming increasingly diverse’ and the need to gather ‘evidence’ of discrimination. To that end, they examine periodic reports issued by EU monitoring agencies since the 1990s—paying specific attention to reporting on school segregation of Roma pupils in Portugal—and national integration policies and initiatives that, since the 2000s, have targeted mainly Roma and black families and youth. They argue that the dominant discourse of integration and cultural diversity conceives of racism as external to European political culture, and as a ‘factor’ of the ‘conflictive nature’ of social interactions in ethnoracially heterogeneous settings. This paves the way for calls for the ‘strengthening of social cohesion’—on the assumption that policy initiatives need to act on the ‘characteristics’ of so-called ‘vulnerable’ populations—whereas institutional arrangements and everyday practices remain unchallenged.

Rethinking the Role of Pedagogical Assistants: Establishing Cooperation between Roma Families and Schools in Serbia

The aim of this paper is to examine the risks and challenges related to cooperation of pedagogical assistants (PAs) with Roma parents/families and working with Roma pupils, as well as to offer further insight into ways to overcome the risks and challenges. Roma pupils and parents/families face numerous difficulties in education, which are reflected in prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination. The educational policy measure of introducing PAs, formerly known as Roma teaching assistants, to the educational system of Serbia, aimed to contribute to the learning and social participation of Roma pupils and establishing cooperation between school staff and Roma parents. The further segregation of Roma pupils and reduced engagement of the teachers in supporting Roma pupils and fostering communication with Roma parents are seen as the possible risks that could be related to the engagement of PAs. In order to minimize the risks we are proposing a framework for defining and understanding the roles of teachers and PAs from intercultural perspective. Relying upon two concepts ̶ intercultural sensitivity (IS) and intercultural competence (IC), we elaborate the necessity of perceiving cultural differences in accordance with the ethnorelative worldview, both by the teachers and PAs. In addition, we outline the cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects of IC, which we believe they should possess. Further recommendations regarding the engagement of PAs and minimizing the risks and challenges are proposed.

School Mediators in the Romanian Education System. A Discussion on Their Role in Addressing Educational Inequalities

Abstract Based on findings from the project ‘Socio-graphic mapping of the Roma Communities in Romania for a community-level monitoring of changes with regard to Roma integration’, the article analyses the role of school mediators in influencing school practices for the reduction of the inequalities Roma students face within the education system. This study investigates the school mediators’ perception of causes and solutions for the difficulties Roma students face within the education system, while keeping in mind the current legislation and the public discourse on Roma. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding, we also investigate school mediators’ perception towards their work, as well as the manner they evaluate collaboration with colleagues, Roma families and other local stakeholders. Our findings illustrate that the school mediator carries out a multitude of tasks sometimes only partly related to the field of school mediation. At the same time, school mediators engage in a type of public discourse with regard to Roma which highlights individual responsibility and merits as solutions in order to overcome disadvantage. With regard to work satisfaction, although school mediators are poorly trained and they deal with a difficult and high amount of work, they report being highly satisfied with some aspects of their work.

Unveiling what should remain hidden: ethics and politics of researching marginal people

The article is a reflection on ethnographic research conducted with poor Roma (“Gypsy”) families under post-socialism, Europe’s marginal people par excellence. Living on the periphery of the dominant socio-economic systems, marginal people often exploit precarious resources by means of informal strategies and tactics in an effort to secure their subsistence on a day-to-day basis. The craft of becoming invisible as well as remaining hidden from the gaze of the State apparatus thus might be a key ingredient of living under conditions of limited resources and opportunities. The article is a story of how the author attempted to solve the moral dilemma of what to do with data that are essentially important for understanding social reality, yet at the same time have been meant to remain hidden, never uncovered and never made public to outsiders. The author shows how understanding “the interior” – the subjectivity of marginal people who have severely limited access to resources and social recognition – is never fully possible without understanding the role which “the exterior” plays in shaping its conditions of possibility. The author argues that in order to grasp the subjectivity of marginal people, one first needs to make out the socio-historical conditions that shape the subjectivities of marginal people. Moreover, one needs to recognize the crucial role which the State plays in shaping the larger socio-historical framework that (re)produces their conditions. The moral and ethical dilemma of what to do with research that unveils what should remain hidden thus could be reconceptualized as the primarily political problem of facing the fundamentally unequal relationship between the State and its marginalized subjects and choosing a morally acceptable political position.

Roma migrant children in Catalonia: between the politics of benevolence and the normalization of violence

ABSTRACTIn this article, I engage with the current debate on Roma migrant children. Taking Catalonia as a case study, I tackle the separation of Romani children from their parents and the completion of pay-to-go schemes for marginalized Romanian Roma families. The focus lies within the allegedly humane logic of state institutions and civil-society organizations that reflect structural oppression and unveil everyday racism against Roma as a group. Specifically, I seek to explain the relation between the “voluntary return” practices and programs for child protection. The benevolent practices towards the migrant Roma families are considered to be grounded on child well-being. At the same time, the common and widespread practice of pay-to-go for poor Romani migrants push the families into a vicious circle of forced mobility. Therefore, I employ the theories of humanitarianism, and the critiques on the politics of benevolence, to reveal the institutional racism against the Romani migrants.

Genetic and biochemical study of dual hereditary jaundice: Dubin-Johnson and Gilbert's syndromes. Haplotyping and founder effect of deletion in ABCC2.

Dual hereditary jaundice, a combination of Dubin-Johnson and Gilbert's syndromes, is a rare clinical entity resulting from the compound defects of bilirubin conjugation and transport. We aimed to study the hereditary jaundice in 56 members from seven seemingly unrelated Roma families, to find the causal genetic defect and to estimate its origin in Roma population. On the basis of biochemical results of total and conjugated serum bilirubin and clinical observations, ABCC2 gene, TATA box and phenobarbital enhancer (PBREM) of UGT1A1 gene were analyzed by sequencing, RFLP and fragment analysis. We found a novel variant c.1013_1014delTG in the eighth exon of ABCC2 gene in 17 individuals in homozygous state. Dual defect NG_011798.1:c.[1013_1014delTG]; NG_002601.2:g.[175492_175493insTA] in homozygous state was found in four subjects. Biochemical analyses of porphyrins and coproporphyrin isomers in urine performed by HPLC showed inverted ratio of excreted coproporphyrin, with the predominance of coproporphyrin I (up to 100%), typical for patients with Dubin-Johnson syndrome. Pursuant cultural and social specifics of the population led us to suspect a founder effect; therefore, we performed a haplotype study using genotyping data from Affymetrix Genome-Wide Human SNP Array 6.0. As a result, we detected a common 86 kbp haplotype encompassing promoter and part of the ABCC2 coding region among all families, and estimated the age of the ancestral variant to 178-185 years. In this study, we found a novel deletion in ABCC2 gene, described genetic and biochemical features of dual hereditary jaundice and confirmed the existence of founder effect and common haplotype among seven Roma families.

Phenotypic heterogeneity in two large Roma families with a congenital myasthenic syndrome due to CHRNE 1267delG mutation. A long-term follow-up

Congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS) are a heterogeneous group of genetic disorders. Mutations in CHRNE are one of the most common cause of them and the ɛ1267delG frameshifting mutation is described to be present on at least one allele of 60% of patients with CHRNE mutations. We present a comprehensive description of the heterogeneous clinical features of the CMS caused by the homozygous 1267delG mutation in the AChR Ɛ subunit in nine members of two large Gipsy kindreds. Our observations indicate that founder Roma mutation 1267delG leads to a phenotype further characterized by ophthalmoplegia, bilateral ptosis, and good response to pyridostigmine and 3,4-DAP; but also by facial weakness, bulbar symptoms, neck muscle weakness, and proximal limb weakness that sometimes entails the loss of ambulation. Interestingly, we found in our series a remarkable proportion of patients with a progressive or fluctuating course of the disease. This finding is in some contrast with previous idea that considered this form of CMS as benign, non progressive, and with a low impact on the capacity of ambulation.

Health and Education in Roma Families. Comparative Study, Romanian Roma Families from Rennes, France vs. Roma from Mironu, Suceava, Romania

Abstract The lower level of education for health and school education among vulnerable groups from Romania is an important part of the vicious circle of poverty and social removal, in particular for Roma minority. The quality of education and health related to this minority group is correlated with cultural aspects and the Roma attitude toward those determinants factors. The study relies on data obtained after questioning a number of 50 people, Roma that immigrated in Rennes, France and 50 Roma from Mironu, Valea Moldovei County, Suceava city. The results of the research show a considerable difference between the attitude of the Roma people from France compared with the attitude of the Romas from Romania regarding the health services and the education that they benefit. The immigrants have a positive attitude regarding the school and the medical services, after applying the quiz it can be said that they are pretty unpleased of the Romanian services than the foreign ones. Although, the Roma minority has the support of the authorities in Rennes and also in Mironu, support for social inclusion and adaptation in a local community, but they are reluctant in accepting these benefits. The programs developed for helping them hadn’t had the expected results, though. Health and education have a specific purpose in developing the society in general. Now we can say that solving the problem with the access to education and health for Roma minority represents the key of their social and economic integration.

Economic Pressure, Individual and Family Processes, and Children’s Reticence in Romanian Families

Using Conger’s family stress model as a theoretical framework, a series of mediated associations among economic hardship, perceived economic pressure, parental depression, marital conflict, psychologically controlling parenting, and children’s reticent behaviors in Romanian families were studied. The sample consisted of 121 Romanian mothers and fathers of 4–5-year-old children. Children’s kindergarten teachers living in urban and rural locations evaluated child reticence. Findings generally support the family stress model. Structural equation modeling showed that after controlling for living in a rural location, economic pressure was indirectly linked with marital conflict through depression. Depression was indirectly related to psychological control through marital conflict, and marital conflict was indirectly linked to child reticence through psychological control. Directions for future research and recommendations for interventions and public policy are described.

Obstacles to emancipation of Roma women

Abstract The article describes the obstacles to the emancipation of Roma women in the family and Czech society. The theoretical side deals with the recent changes in gender roles in the Roma family, changes in the position of Roma women and their discrimination as well as the concept of emancipation. The article aims to describe the obstacles a Roma woman must overcome in the course of emancipation. The data are based on qualitative socio-ethnographic research conducted through narrative interviews with 30 women of different ages and classes who identify as Roma and live in three Czech regional capitals. The research sample was compiled using the snowball method. The data collected in the field research were analyzed in Atlas.ti using anchored theory. We identified five main obstacles to the emancipation of Roma woman. They include obstacles emanating from the family and the majority society as well as obstacles caused by the hegemony of masculinity and those emanating from the woman. By gaining an understanding of relations in Roma families, the situation regarding the emancipation of Roma women and the associated barriers may help those who come into daily contact with the Roma minority to take appropriate actions and apply the right interventions.