1992, Prague, Czech Republic. A young, gadje (white) female researcher regularly passes through a Romani neighborhood. In time and as a counter-gift to the residents’ hospitable treatment, she offers the one thing she, a native speaker of English, feels she can offer that they would benefit from: English lessons. There, she meets Lucka, a 7-year-old Romani girl who is one of her more gifted students. Lucka is a quick learner and has an ear for accents. Still, a few months into the lessons, Lucka’s mother takes the researcher aside and informs her that Lucka had been placed in special ed school. As she wipes her tears, she more soberly assesses the situation: at least she’ll be among her own.
Both the empirical knowledge of the Romani people articulated by Lucka’s mother and statistical data in the Czech Republic and Central Europe confirm that the girl is, sadly, one of many young Roma children who have been, and are still being, disproportionately placed in special ed, often forming entire cohorts. Data from the late 1980s and early 1990s suggests that 46% of Roma children were placed in special ed schools, compared to 3.2% of the general population, according to the European Roma Rights Centre. Despite the European Union proclaiming attention to the issue with initiative of the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2015), the DH and Others vs the Czech Republic case in the European Court in 2007 suggests that change, if any, is slow. Why are Roma students excluded from mainstream educational spaces? What are the consequences of such exclusion? How can European schools be more inclusive of and accommodating to the Roma population?
The trend has segregationist effects, as the vast majority of Czech schools serves less than 5% of Roma children, according to Data from Veronika Bazalová (Office of the Public Defender of Rights, Štěpán Drahokoupil, Open Society Fund Prague). It further confines Roma children to specific ‘practical’ and vocational paths, limits the possibilities and pace of their learning, and rhetorically justifies the resources allocated to their schools.
This is only one of a series of historical injustices and discrimination that the Romani ethnic group has endured in Europe, including documented enslavement of Roma in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia until the mid-19th century, pogroms, and the Nazi Porajmos (Devouring) during World War II which killed approximately 250,000-500,000 Roma individuals. After WWII, Roma migrated from Slovakia to Czech Republic as unskilled labor. Today, economic circumstances — more notably the reduction of demand for the unskilled labor which they offered — have intensified the cultural differences and refueled expressions of racial hate by mainstream ethnic groups, as ultra-conservative groups have expanded their influence in Europe during the last three decades.
Understanding the disproportionate placement of Roma children in special ed cannot be seen outside of these historical and sociopolitical conditions, argues Professor Deborah L. Michaels of Grinnell College in her October 2021 talk at the European Union Center at the University of Illinois. Her work on the education of Roma children, after her encounter with Lucka in 1990s Prague to today, has expanded beyond the Czech Republic to Slovakia and Spain and aims to understand the depth of reasons behind these placements. Her interpretation utilizes a DisCrit theoretical framework to this effect.
DisCrit is a powerful explanation of the Roma education case in Europe, because it brings together the discourses of Disability Studies and Critical Race theory in order to account for the unequal placement of children of color within intellectual disability groups in the United States. Parallels are strong both in their pragmatic and theoretical dimensions, as they relate to discourses on transatlantic eugenics and disability as deviance. DisCrit offers a counter-narrative to those, arguing that race or disability are not fixed identities which define a human as a whole, but are both constructed and intersecting with other identities, such as those of gender, class or sexuality.
DisCrit further calls for actions to remove and overcome systemic barriers to inclusive participation on behalf of Roma people in mainstream classrooms. It addresses racism and prejudice by teachers, assessment bias resulting from the usage of inappropriate testing tools, language and cultural differences, and socio-economic barriers which are preventing Roma students from fully participating in schools. DisCrit places emphasis on the lack of full communication and engagement of teachers with parents and communities, and disrupts common sense, highlighting it as “uncritical and largely unconscious way of perceiving and understanding the world.” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 322 -editors’ introduction). What results is a powerful demonstration of the ways by which disability studies often incorporate and legitimize racial bias, by engaging with ‘deficit’ language.
How do we create a more inclusive educational system and how do we disrupt the flow of Roma students to special education classrooms? Professor Michaels suggests three areas of action with the enhancement of teachers’ education, curriculum reform and community organization. In all areas, rather than homogenizing Roma children, more participatory models — ones that educate students and communities both ways about cultural exchange and histories. — should be included. Dialogue and political advocacy need to be part of the process, which brings members of the Roma community with voice and power at the center of action. The stakes are high. Professor Michaels cites the words of Václav Havel: "The Gypsy problem is a litmus test not of democracy but of a civil society."
Both the empirical knowledge of the Romani people articulated by Lucka’s mother and statistical data in the Czech Republic and Central Europe confirm that the girl is, sadly, one of many young Roma children who have been, and are still being, disproportionately placed in special ed, often forming entire cohorts. Data from the late 1980s and early 1990s suggests that 46% of Roma children were placed in special ed schools, compared to 3.2% of the general population, according to the European Roma Rights Centre. Despite the European Union proclaiming attention to the issue with initiative of the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2015), the DH and Others vs the Czech Republic case in the European Court in 2007 suggests that change, if any, is slow. Why are Roma students excluded from mainstream educational spaces? What are the consequences of such exclusion? How can European schools be more inclusive of and accommodating to the Roma population?
The trend has segregationist effects, as the vast majority of Czech schools serves less than 5% of Roma children, according to Data from Veronika Bazalová (Office of the Public Defender of Rights, Štěpán Drahokoupil, Open Society Fund Prague). It further confines Roma children to specific ‘practical’ and vocational paths, limits the possibilities and pace of their learning, and rhetorically justifies the resources allocated to their schools.
This is only one of a series of historical injustices and discrimination that the Romani ethnic group has endured in Europe, including documented enslavement of Roma in the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia until the mid-19th century, pogroms, and the Nazi Porajmos (Devouring) during World War II which killed approximately 250,000-500,000 Roma individuals. After WWII, Roma migrated from Slovakia to Czech Republic as unskilled labor. Today, economic circumstances — more notably the reduction of demand for the unskilled labor which they offered — have intensified the cultural differences and refueled expressions of racial hate by mainstream ethnic groups, as ultra-conservative groups have expanded their influence in Europe during the last three decades.
Understanding the disproportionate placement of Roma children in special ed cannot be seen outside of these historical and sociopolitical conditions, argues Professor Deborah L. Michaels of Grinnell College in her October 2021 talk at the European Union Center at the University of Illinois. Her work on the education of Roma children, after her encounter with Lucka in 1990s Prague to today, has expanded beyond the Czech Republic to Slovakia and Spain and aims to understand the depth of reasons behind these placements. Her interpretation utilizes a DisCrit theoretical framework to this effect.
DisCrit is a powerful explanation of the Roma education case in Europe, because it brings together the discourses of Disability Studies and Critical Race theory in order to account for the unequal placement of children of color within intellectual disability groups in the United States. Parallels are strong both in their pragmatic and theoretical dimensions, as they relate to discourses on transatlantic eugenics and disability as deviance. DisCrit offers a counter-narrative to those, arguing that race or disability are not fixed identities which define a human as a whole, but are both constructed and intersecting with other identities, such as those of gender, class or sexuality.
DisCrit further calls for actions to remove and overcome systemic barriers to inclusive participation on behalf of Roma people in mainstream classrooms. It addresses racism and prejudice by teachers, assessment bias resulting from the usage of inappropriate testing tools, language and cultural differences, and socio-economic barriers which are preventing Roma students from fully participating in schools. DisCrit places emphasis on the lack of full communication and engagement of teachers with parents and communities, and disrupts common sense, highlighting it as “uncritical and largely unconscious way of perceiving and understanding the world.” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 322 -editors’ introduction). What results is a powerful demonstration of the ways by which disability studies often incorporate and legitimize racial bias, by engaging with ‘deficit’ language.
How do we create a more inclusive educational system and how do we disrupt the flow of Roma students to special education classrooms? Professor Michaels suggests three areas of action with the enhancement of teachers’ education, curriculum reform and community organization. In all areas, rather than homogenizing Roma children, more participatory models — ones that educate students and communities both ways about cultural exchange and histories. — should be included. Dialogue and political advocacy need to be part of the process, which brings members of the Roma community with voice and power at the center of action. The stakes are high. Professor Michaels cites the words of Václav Havel: "The Gypsy problem is a litmus test not of democracy but of a civil society."
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