Roma Education in Europe ─ Practices, policies and politics

For the last three decades, the international response to the adverse conditions of Roma has been intensive, producing a plethora of educational policies, reforms, and strategies that have been developed and implemented. This edited volume gathers together prominent international scholars, advocates and activists, with the purpose of offering a comprehensive and integrated understanding of how historical, political, and cultural forces shape educational experiences and social policy for the Roma population in Europe.

The book uses theoretical and empirical lenses to understand the formal and informal education of Roma. Through the contextualised theorisation of Roma education it illustrates, illuminates and discusses issues of wider concern. Interdisciplinary conceptual frameworks bind the chapters together and offer an in-depth examination of the questions and issues relevant to the field of education, structuring the book around three central themes:

-schooling and social policy; the promises and pitfalls of multiculturalism, integration and inclusion and the deconstruction of educational policies and law

-education inside and outside schools; empirical accounts of life in school and the achievements and missed opportunities of the Decade of Roma Inclusion

-participation, activism and advocacy; investigating the responsibilities of Roma and non-Roma intellectuals, educators, activists and advocates.

Roma Education in Europe grapples with uneven economic and political developments, and as a result, with the possibilities and shortcomings of integration, social justice, and the role of supranational agencies in changing the course of schooling and education. The book will be key reading for those researching or studying Romani studies, education, sociology, and cultural, ethnicity and immigration studies.

Maja Miskovic is Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Foundations and Inquiry, and Director of the Curriculum and Social Inquiry doctoral program at National Louis University, Chicago, USA.