Deconstructing Racial Modes: Romani Voices Revealing the Effects of Anti-Roma Racialization in Education

• In Event: Migrants, Refugees in an International Context

Abstract

This study draws from the case of Roma education in Bulgaria to examine the effects of racialization on the education of Roma people. The qualitative project frames the discussion within the theoretical concept of racialization as an anti-Roma ideology where intergroup differences are racialized exacerbating in this way discriminatory treatment. The analysis examines the accounts of eighteen Roma parents and students in two towns and identifies three racializing modes as present in schools—treatment as a racially inferior group; criminalization; and deficit perceptions of educators. By tracing their effects on the educational experiences of the participants, the project shows schools’ function as spaces for dominant ideological powers to maintain social stratification and ‘assign’ racial identities to the Roma students.

Author

• Veselina Lambrev, University of South Florida