Author: Mgr. Estera Kövérová, PhD.
Slovak Academy of Sciences and Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
In our research we applied the Positive Deviance approach (Marsh, Schroeder, Dearden, Sternin, and Sternin, 2004) and tried to find out which conditions and circumstances in life stories of young people from marginalized Roma communities (MRC) are supportive and lead to success in formal education. In Slovakia there is an ethnic minority of Romas counting around 300-500 thousand citizens, approximately a half of who live in segregated communities with extremely low housing and hygiene standards, extremely low socio-economic status, mostly unemployed, majority of whom finish (if) primary education and only episodically there are young Romas who finish secondary education.
Research sample
Main target group of our research are ten successful young people from marginalized Roma communities (MRC). We applied the Positive Deviance approach (Marsh, Schroeder, Dearden, Sternin, and Sternin, 2004) and accepted these youngsters as positive deviants, because they succeed in formal education, attend high school or reached graduation in spite of being exposed to extremely unfavourable conditions. In our research sample there were further twenty nine high-school teachers (including directors) from three different high-schools in the Eastern part of Slovakia. Two of the schools were vocational and one medical school. It was because most of the Roma communities are located in the Eastern part of Slovak Republic. Moreover in our research took part also seven elementary-school teachers from four primary schools (situated also mostly in the Eastern part of Slovakia. Concerning the students participating in our research five high-school students and five alumni of high-schools were included, accompanied by their relatives and their class teachers from schools mentioned above. The youngsters were from seven Roma communities: one community was from capital city Bratislava (Western part of Slovakia), one community from Central Slovakia and another five were from Eastern part of Slovakia. Three social workers allocated to the respective Roma communities were also part of our research sample. Data collection yielded alltogether sixty-one in-depth interviews. The structure of our research sample allows us to see a comprehensive picture of contexts and conditions, and in particular, strategies enabling educational success.
Results
The main finding is that we were able to identify positive deviance (PD) at various levels – PD schools, PD teachers, PD Roma life-trajectories and families.
High-schools’ PD determinants and burdens
In the first part of our research we analysed three high-schools (situated in Eastern parts of Slovakia) - we consider them as “positive deviant systems” due to their ability to enable educational success of young people from MRC. This PD system consists of three categories: (1) empowering educational expectations towards Roma students - instead of doubting them due to their poor living conditions, (2) the language (discourse) they use when they talk about Roma children (inclusive vs. discriminative), and (3) relationship between Roma and non-Roma cultivated by actors in the educational interactions. This PD capacity we could identify mainly in the secondary medical school, in contrast to vocational schools.
Medical school have lower percentage of students from MCR. Teachers use words “we don´t distinguish” or “we don´t differentiate” when they answer the question about differences between Roma and non-Roma students. They approach in the same way Roma and non-Roma and neglect their specificities. In contrast, at vocational schools with higher percentage of Roma students, teachers talk about differences between Roma and non-Roma and take into account insufficient living conditions of young people from MRC. Also, their language is different. Teachers at medical school don´t use discriminative labels (they are rather politically correct), in contrast to teachers at vocational schools where they frequently use pejorative stereotypical labels to mark young people from MRC. Here friendly relationships between Roma and non-Roma do not exist - students mostly don´t know and don´t like each other.
In the next section, we focused on systematic actions of secondary schools towards youngsters from MRC. We could identify just two systematic actions at vocational schools: financial subsidy for language-learning textbooks and making the wearing of expensive protective clothing not obligatory. Both of these actions regard financial issues. Along with it we identified only episodic individual actions of some teachers towards the Roma students – a somehow “tricky” justification of absences from classes in case that family don’t have enough money to cover student’s travel expenses, helping students with their homework (spending time with them at school after classes), adapting (decreasing) expectations concerning student’s performance according to their learning capacity, using elements of Roma language, using participatory instead of repressive approaches, and behaving “friendly” - talking with them about their needs, interests, feelings (including topics of intimate relationships and sexuality).
Unfortunately, we also observed segregation tendencies at vocational schools – these schools are divided into separate study programs – “studying” programme (with graduation - diploma) and diverse practical learning programmes (without graduation – certificate, thus not allowing the student further study at university); a significantly higher percentage of students from MRC was studying the “non-graduation” programmes.
Individual life-trajectories, families, and PD determinants
Following the PD methodology we also tried to identify similarities in life stories of young Roma from segregated environment that might have affected their educational success.
Interviews suggested that social ties play a crucial role for school success of young Roma people. Majority of our students-participants, as well as their parents, have good relationships with people from the majority society. Relationships with non-Roma peers in the integrated environment were supportive for their high school study performance. It seems that these relationships can “substitute” weak inclusion-policies in schools in Slovakia. Students with “pilot” inclusion experiences, do not feel alienated in the social network of the high-school, where most of their classmates are non-Roma, and they establish new relationships with their non-Roma classmates easier. They also spend their leisure time in community centres or schools - doing, some sport activities, especially football, or hanging out with their Roma or non-Roma friends.
Interviews suggest that another crucial role in school success of young people from MRC played Slovak language as mother tongue or acquiring Slovak language (i.e. the “state” language in which education is conducted in Slovakia) before starting to attend elementary school (parents of these children have presumably a kind of targeted strategy - teach their children both Roma and Slovak language, or teach them just Slovak because Slovak is the language towards education). Another individual PD determinant was enrolment in preschool education.
Motivation to study well in our Roma participants was mostly saturated by their desire “not to live like their parents” or “leave the community”. They reject their identification with the Roma community.
In the Roma families of our PD participants there are exact rules (not included in traditional Roma social norms) and parents were consistent at following these rules: parents talk with them about their future but they are just quiet listeners – they do not prescribe them what should they do, what school or profession they should choose. Nevertheless they consider education important and they try to motivate and show their children this value (learn with them, shepherd them to school).
Young PD Romas find ways how to manage their time between houseworks, taking care of their younger siblings and doing homeworks. Often, parents do not burden them with (otherwise normative) taking care of younger siblings.
In life-stories of these successful young people often appears an important person from outside of the community – a social worker, priest or teacher – a kind of “buddy” stimulating their motivation and guiding them into setting goals.
References:
David R Marsh, Dirk G Schroeder, Kirk A Dearden, Jerry Sternin, Monique Sternin (2004) The power of positive deviance. BMJ, vol 329, 13 November 2004, pp 1177-1179.
Related Readings:
Positive deviant story of young man from marginalized Roma community by Mgr. Estera Kövérová