Strategies and Tactics to Combat Segregation of Roma Children in Schools
Case studies from Romania, Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic,
Bulgaria, and Greece
FXB Center for Health and Human Rights
Harvard University
2015
Roma children enter the world with the heavy baggage of intergenerational inequality,
born into societies where discrimination and social-economic struggles are part of
daily life. Researchers and policymakers agree that, across Europe, Roma children
experience widespread, systematic exclusion from education, leading to significant gaps
in participation and achievement. School segregation appears to be a major contributing
factor to these gaping discrepancies in education.
This report aims to review and synthetize the desegregation strategies and tactics of six nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Central, Eastern, and Southern European countries. The report
captures evidence-based data on the negative outcomes of segregation of Roma children in schools
and highlights effective initiatives employed by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in Croatia
and Hungary, Romani CRISS in Romania, Life Together in Czech Republic, Integro in Bulgaria, and
Antigone in Greece. These organizations comprise DARE-Net, a 2012 initiative led by Romani CRISS.
During the project’s implementation, the Chance for Children Foundation (CFCF) joined the network
and focused primarily on activities implemented in Hungary.
The initiatives described in this report are presented as six case studies. Each case study summarizes
findings based on an in-depth literature review and semi-structured interviews with communities,
experts, and stakeholders. The case studies describe the work that has been done to advocate for
changes in policy, legislation, curricula, and/or practice in political and societal environments that have
been resistant to change. The Report Digest is available at http://fxb.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/
sites/5/2015/02/Romani-Segregation-2015-brief-version-final.pdf
Despite the fact that the vast majority of Roma children enroll in school, only half complete primary
education. Moreover, most do not even reach the level of secondary education,3
and less than one
percent participate in tertiary education in some Central, Eastern, and Southern European countries.4
A broad range of factors determines these gaps, and in this report, we focus primarily on school
segregation. Roma children continue to be placed in separate classes based solely on their skin
color, ethnicity, and socio- economic situation; often they are placed into separate buildings, separate
schools and classes, including special schools. As a result, Roma receive inferior education and endure
discriminatory treatment from teachers and school administrators.
Even when not physically separated, Roma children are routinely placed in the back of the class,
receive less attention from their teachers, and endure bullying and stigma. Discriminatory treatment is
often compounded by national education systems that lack the capacity to address the needs of socially
and ethnically disadvantaged students and provide intercultural and inclusive environments. School
segregation is now prohibited by European Union’s Race Equality Directive (RED), and domestic laws
of each country for which we developed a case study; however, the practice persists and has been
widely documented by civil society organizations and scholars.
Segregation keeps Roma children away from quality education, social networks, job, and better
salaries opportunities. On the other hand, well designed desegregation efforts and positive interethnic
interactions can stymie prejudice from non-Roma peers and contribute to the self-esteem and pride of
Roma children.
For the last quarter of a century, improving access to education for Roma children has been a central
feature in national and international commitments related to Roma inclusion in Europe. Yet addressing
the policy or practice of streamlining Roma children into separate schools and classes based on
their ethnicity—segregation—has been a challenging task, both politically and structurally, for those
governments and institutions involved. Civil society representatives have therefore played a lead role in
raising awareness of the phenomenon, convincing central and local authorities to take action, pushing
for accountability, and providing technical guidance as needed.
Various organizations across Europe have worked to address the problem. Strategies have included
everything from supporting the participation of Roma children in education to dismantling the legal and
policy frameworks of segregation to piloting programs and initiatives to promote the integration of Roma
children into mainstream schools and classes. It is, therefore, critical to identify and share such efforts
with civil society representatives and policymakers from other regions and countries, so that they can
learn from these initiatives and implement them accordingly to the needs of the communities they are
working with.
In each country we discuss in this report, we analyze the political context’s role and power in making
change possible. The EU pre-accession requirements for non-discriminatory policies and actions as
well as the ECtHR judgments made possible relevant gains in policy and legislative changes. Yet much
is to be done in translating those documents into desegregation practices in all the countries studied in
this report.
The report also addresses the challenges and obstacles encountered by civil society representatives
throughout their journey towards school desegregation, but its main focus is on the strategies and
tactics employed by NGOs to achieve desegregation. For example, judgments from the European Court
of Human Rights (ECtHR) on segregation (commencing with 2007’s landmark D.H. and Others vs.
Czech Republic), research, pilot projects, along with community work were explicitly and associatively
used by the organizations involved to advocate for policy and legislative changes. Some of the
organizations, such as the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), were leading forces in bringing
segregation cases before the ECtHR.
We analyze the tactics and the actions of NGOs in their social and political environments and highlight
their successes, as well as their lessons learned, for other organizations, institutions, scholars, and
advocates. We aim to show models of advocacy and interventions that can potentially lead to change in
law, policy, and practice in other regions and contexts.
...
II. Methodology
For the Strategies and Tactics to Combat Segregation of Roma Children in Schools report, we used
a case study methodology to develop a practice-based inventory of desegregation. We documented
and analyzed interventions that promote desegregation and help ensure equal opportunities for quality
education. The interventions we analysed have been implemented or recommended by the project
partner organizations working in six countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary,
and Romania.6
The interventions include community projects, advocacy campaigns for changes in
legislation and policy, curriculum revision for minority inclusion, and strategic litigation. Therefore,
Harvard FXB only looked at the projects and initiatives undertaken by the DARE-Net members, and not
at all effective desegregation practices existing in the region.
In each case study, we single out the history, challenges, and breakdowns encountered by an
organization in implementing a desegregation intervention, placing particular emphasis on the effective
desegregation interventions and tactics that NGOs used. We also analyze NGO actions by taking into
consideration the political context in which they have been developed.
The findings in this report are based on desk research (online desk research, government and NGO
published data), individual semi-structured interviews and group interviews conducted in all project
countries. Respondents included Roma adolescents and parents, Roma community leaders, Roma and
non-Roma civil society organizations, school teachers, principals, and administrators, local, regional,
and national policymakers responsible for education and social inclusion matters, and various experts,
including lawyers, economists, and university professors. The analysis included in one of the case
studies was also based on direct field experience from one of the authors.
The desk research information derives from documents made available by the partner organizations
(annual reports, articles, publications, research, videos, audio materials, project reports, external or
internal evaluations of the desegregation project, etc.) as well as documentation and publications by
local and international organizations, reports and materials published by intergovernmental and national
institutions, ECtHR jurisprudence, and academic papers.
Initial country selection for membership in the DARE-Net, and consequently in the case study report,
was based on demographic and NGO strategic relevance. The majority of the countries have national
and/or European Court of Human Rights’ jurisprudence on segregation of Roma children. The
partner organizations in this transnational project have initiated desegregation projects using different
approaches, usually in accordance with their mandate and previous experience. The projects used
different strategies and methods, each project tackling segregation from a specific angle, including
building policy and legislation, imposing sanctions, and creating an intercultural school and community
empowerment. The desegregation projects they implemented have showed effectiveness in addressing
desegregation at local or national level. Put together, the tactics do not conflict but rather show the
complexity of desegregation processes and issues that need to be addressed to achieve desegregation
and good quality education.
To more accurately present the complexity of this issue, the obstacles, and available strategies to
achieve desegregation, the report includes a range of expert opinions. We conducted the a number
of 92 semi-structured individual or group interviews as follows: 12 interviews with 15 stakeholders in
Bulgaria, 13 interviews with 15 stakeholders in the Czech Republic, 13 interviews with 30 stakeholders
in Croatia, 9 interviews with 12 or more stakeholders in Hungary, 5 interviews with 10 stakeholders in
Greece, and 9 interviews with nine stakeholders in Romania.
The Roma community members we had interviews with included parents and plaintiffs involved in
two legal cases: Oršuš and Others vs. Croatia and D.H. and Others vs. Czech Republic. Additional
information on Horvath and Kiss vs. Hungary was gathered from one of the plaintiffs by project
partners, CFCF and Romani CRISS. We visited and interviewed representatives of schools and
kindergartens in Kutina, Croatia, Mursko Sredisce, Croatia, Thessaloniki, Greece, Zavet, Bulgaria, and
Horni Suca, Czech Republic. We interviewed 26 representatives of civil society, 4 scholars, 1 attorney,
and 15 representatives of regional and central institutions.
Each interview was conducted by a team of two researchers, while each case study was drafted by
one lead researcher in partnership with the other staff. This team included Arlan Fuller, Harvard FXB’s
Executive Director, Margareta Matache, Roma rights advocate and Harvard Chan School Instructor,
and Sarah Dougherty, former Harvard Chan School Research Associate. The opinions included in this
report do not necessarily reflect the views of the stakeholders the authors met and consulted with, but
do sum up the conclusions reached by the research team analyzing the data.
A limitation of this report was the small scope of our study. We of course could not cover all
desegregation initiatives existing in the region. Moreover, Harvard FXB did not develop a methodology
to select the initiatives included in this report. It focused primarily on the project partners’ work.
The peer review process was ensured internally by prof. Jacqueline Bhabha (professor of law, Harvard
University) and externally by Dr. Marius Taba (sociologist). We also asked the DARE-Net organizations
to provide feedback for each country-based study. In addition, Biserka Tomljenović (independent
expert) provided us feedback on the Croatia case study.
The report will be disseminated to various governmental, academic, and civil society stakeholders in
the partner countries as well as in other countries in Europe. The report will also serve students and the
community at large interested in learning advocacy strategies aimed at policy and legislative changes.
III. Case Study Advocacy for Desegregation Policies and Measures
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