Abstract
This chapter is based on the ethnography of the locality where the school is situated. A detailed explanation of the context is important for comprehending the exceptional character of the completely desegregated local educational system in the Czech Republic because across most of the country, Roma students are segregated in special schools with curricula designed for students with learning or behavioral disorders or mental handicaps, or in ethnically homogeneous community schools with a lower quality curriculum. The chapter further explores how ethnicity is/is not manifest in the symbolic as well as physical environment of the school. Ethnicity proves to be a social characteristic endowed by symbolic power that affects the physical organization of school life (e.g., specific strategies of classroom management).
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Notes
- 1.
Czech basic schools educate children aged 6–15, and they are divided into primary and secondary levels. After the fifth or seventh grade, students can be accepted to grammar schools (which are part of the secondary/high school system) based on selective entrance exams. Otherwise, they continue in the basic school until the ninth grade, when they can leave for secondary schooling or start a job.
- 2.
My research mainly focuses on Roma students, who have become the target of DiverCity’s desegregation policies. The Striped basic school was attended by students from other ethnic minorities as well, mainly Vietnamese. In 8B, there was one boy, whose parents came from Vietnam (see Table 5.2 in Chap. 5). Some other students were of mixed ethnic origin (one girl’s mother was Ukrainian, and one boy had Greek roots), but this fact has not proven significant in my research, and that is why I did not focus on their experiences.
- 3.
Previously, practical schools were primarily intended to educate students with minor mental disabilities (“light mental handicaps”); however, many Roma students were sent there, often without proper justification. Even if the Education Act in 2016, enacted to support inclusive education, cancelled the Annex of Framework Educational Program for Students with Light Mental Handicaps, there are still many Roma students who are educated outside of the mainstream (in ethnically segregated schools, special schools for children with medium or serious developmental disabilities, etc.).
- 4.
The Education Act No. 82/2015 Coll., enacted on 1 September 2016, cancelled the use of the category “social disadvantage.” It instead mandated supportive measures for students with special educational needs. However, during my research, the category was used in regard to the education of students with special educational needs, and that is why I reflect on its impacts.
- 5.
I labeled the schools in DiverCity by pseudonyms indicating various geometric shapes and colors. To highlight them, I use the names in italics.
- 6.
According to Miles and Huberman (1994), the Striped basic school fulfills criteria for the selection of a “typical case.”
- 7.
The last Census conducted on 26 March 2011, states 24,008 inhabitants. In some periods of year, the number of Roma people in the excluded locality almost doubles. That is why I rounded the estimated number of inhabitants upwards.
- 8.
In case the school has free places, it is obliged to accept any students, not to contravene the law. The experiences of parents from other cities, however, show that many schools prefer majority students over the Roma. Several sections of the Education Act No. 561/2004 Coll. on preschool, basic, secondary, vocational, and other education, as amended and consolidated, mandate that a head of a basic school is obliged to prioritize children from the given catchment area. In case children living outside of the catchment area are interested in entering the school, the head is forbidden to make any distinctions among them (e.g., to discriminate against Roma applicants) that could influence enrollment.
- 9.
Vojtíšková (2011) mentions the case of a foreign student who had been seated in the back rows for several years after entering a Czech school and his classmates saw him as a “terrorist.” Yet, he was a remarkably intelligent student, considered by many teachers a typical “eager beaver.” Gradually, with his parents’ intervention, he worked up to the first row in front of the teacher’s desk.
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Zákon č. 561/2004 Sb., o předškolním, základním, středním, vyšším odborném a jiném vzdělávání, ve znění pozdějších předpisů.
Zákon č. 82/2015 Sb., ze dne 19. března 2015, kterým se mění zákon č. 561/2004 Sb., o předškolním, základním, středním, vyšším odborném a jiném vzdělávání (školský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů, a některé další zákony.
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Obrovská, J. (2018). The World of the Town and the School: The Institutional Embeddedness of Ethnicity. In: Roma Identity and Ritual in the Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94514-9_4
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