Opportunities of educational programs aiming at equality for Roma students within a system of educational inequalities

Abstract

Abstract This study examines how child-centred educational programs focusing on Roma students’ recognition and equity can operate in the essentially lexical-knowledge-based, subject-oriented Hungarian educational system which follows a traditional approach to education. The study raises questions as to whether these programs are able to bring a difference to the education system by changing the pedagogical approach currently dominant in schools, and whether they have effects on Roma students’ school success in higher education. The main proposition of the study is that it is impossible to upgrade the entire system without joint interventions affecting all its levels: the structural-political, the institutional and the individual. Educational programs representing alternative pedagogical approaches, compared to mainstream conceptions, are usually targeted at only one level of the education system, and are therefore likely to remain isolated, at best affecting the whole system very slowly, due to the mutual interconnections between its levels. In short, it is not enough to change the teachers’ approach through teacher-training programs in order to prevent Roma students’ failure in schools. It is also necessary to eliminate school segregation. Segregated conditions leading to discrimination causes harm to Roma students’ dignity, which cannot be compensated for by a good teacher. The reverse is also true: integration in education cannot have positive effects on Roma students’ school success without the adoption of an appropriate pedagogical approach. Both conditions are necessary for successful social integration. Keywords: Roma students, school failure, teacher training, study halls, segregation in education, education system, pedagogical approach