Structural Dimensions of Roma School Desegregation Policies in Central and Eastern Europe

Source: European Educational Research Journal, Volume 13 Number 3 2014, p. 268‑281.

This article aims to address the causes of school desegregation failure of the children study at Rome's schools.
Scrutiny of the socio-economic exclusion of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe has brought attention to the widespread practice of school segregation of Romani children who are automatically placed in classes for the mentally disabled or shunted into separate and inferior schools and classrooms.
It is now widely recognised that such practices adversely affect the educational development of Romani children, which in turn dramatically constrains their possibilities to succeed in adult life.

While national programmes face implementation challenges at the local level, the grassroots initiatives are rarely mainstreamed into wider policy strategies.
At the end of the day, however, the status quo is preserved.

This article argues that the narrow desegregation aims prevents creation of comprehensive approaches sensitive to structural dimensions of segregation and discrimination.
It builds on the policy design theory in order to capture the impact of discourse and policy content on the implementation outputs.