This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Sage Journals in Education, in Citizenship and Social Justice on 27 sep 2022, available at:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17461979221123009
Gallego-Noche, B., & Goenechea-Permisán, C. (2022). What makes them thrive? Protective factors for the academic success of Roma university students: A case study. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/17461979221123009
What makes them thrive? Protective factors for the academic success of Roma university students. A case study.
Abstract
The situation of oppression and discrimination of Roma people is a fact that can be observed in many research studies. This is in conjunction with segregation and unequal educational conditions for Roma students, which do not seem to improve despite economic investment and specific intervention programmes. We understand that these situations are ever-present and structural in our society and that they segregate and exclude and become cultural, social and educational barriers for Roma students to successfully continue their academic careers until they reach university. The aim of this study was to understand the views of Roma students at a university in the south of Spain regarding the factors that had enabled them to overcome the initial difficulties they had faced during primary and secondary education, and which had acted as protective factors against educational exclusion.
We have included quantitative data through the use of questionnaires, and qualitative data through the use of interviews. The results suggest that these factors are diverse, intersecting and are not mutually exclusive. Family and teacher support and the presence of a non-segregated environment, as well as personal motivation and self-awareness, are key factors. A relevant finding has been the flexibility of cultural reference models that have allowed them to navigate the exclusionary structures of the school.
Keywords: ethnicity, mixed-methods, protective factors, racism, Roma students
Introduction
The Roma people are the largest ethnic minority in Europe with there currently being between 10 and 12 million Roma people worldwide (European Commission, 2020a; Franz, 2020). This pres- ence, which is far from being homogeneous, presents diversity in historical and political narratives and national and international trajectories, as well as different ways of coexisting and relating to the majority groups (Mendes et al., 2021).
Despite the different political strategies, as well as the legal and investment frameworks devel- oped in recent years (ECRI, 2020; European Commission, 2019, 2020b), the marginalisation of Roma communities has continued, with a high percentage of Roma people living in Europe facing daily situations of inequality, discrimination, socio-economic and educational exclusion and anti- gypsyism. We agree with Campos et al. (2019) that these processes of violence against the Roma people are socially ingrained and are inherently linked to the construction and building of our society They are based on social, cultural and community dynamics that privilege the worldview of the dominant groups (Gallego-Noche, 2019; Santos, 2016).
Using this as a starting point, and as will be analysed below, the difficulties and barriers that Roma students are faced with are structural, cultural and institutional. In this study, we look to understand how, despite these barriers, some Roma students have continued their schooling until the university level, that is, which factors acted as protectors against educational exclusion.
Educational inequality and its effects on those from a Roma background
The latest data collected at the European level (Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2018;
European Commission, 2020a) on the situation of Roma students in the educational context, show the fol- lowing: early childhood education and care participation (3+) consists of 42% Roma and 92.2% general population (gap of 50.2%); 44% of Roma children attend schools where most or all chil- dren are Roma; and the percentage of students completing upper secondary school or above is 28% for Roma students and 83.5% for the general population (gap of 55.5%). Likewise, the data show that 50% of Roma people between the ages of 6 and 24 do not attend school. On average, 18% of Roma people between 6 and 24 years of age attend an educational level lower than that which corresponds to their age. The proportion of Roma early school-leavers is disproportionately high compared with the general population.
The data also show that Roma students are overrepresented in compensatory formal and non- formal education, and estimates for Roma people leaving school early put the figure at over 90%
(Carrasco and Poblet, 2019: 15).
The data reflect the difficulty of transforming the initial situations of inequality that make educational and social inclusion for Roma students impossible. Inequalities in conditions and opportunities, as well as the inability of the educational and political system to provide a response tailored to the needs and characteristics of Roma people, are the reasons for exclusion and segrega- tion (but not abandonment), and subsequently are the reason why children from disadvantaged contexts leave education (Gallego-Noche, 2019). In other words, it is the structures within schools, and the racist, political and social organisation itself, which excludes children.
However, the edu- cational policies that respond to these situations have been, and continue to be, mostly educational reinforcement and compensation programmes for Roma students, which do not question nor act towards the transformation of these structures from an inclusive community approach. ‘Traveller communities are not homogeneous and nor are their educational needs and desires. Nevertheless, what cannot be denied is that they almost all continue to experience discrimination and this limits their educational opportunities’ (D’Arcy and & Gallogaw, 2018: 226).
These barriers can be seen in the discriminatory situations experienced by Roma students, that is, in their intra- and inter-school segregation, and in their under-representation in private and state- subsidised schools (Parra et al., 2017).
The study conducted by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe (2017) specifically notes:
School segregation also seriously affects Roma and Traveller children in many member states. A disproportionate number of them are enrolled in remedial classrooms and special schools, where they receive education according to a reduced curriculum. In some countries, the chances of Roma children being enrolled in a special school have been 27 times higher than for non-Roma children. (Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, 2017:
8)
School segregation remains a problem in Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Slovakia despite the legal prohibition of this practice and recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights (Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2018: 10).
Education acts as a conditioning variable against the level of risk of social exclusion (Bhopal and Myers, 2009) since its deficit, especially in secondary and post-compulsory education, is the main determinant of the low labour market inclusion of Roma people (Fundación Secretariado Gitano, 2020). This is particularly worrying if we consider that only around 1% of Roma people have a university education in 12 European countries (Brüggemann, 2012).
Protective factors in the face of the educational exclusion of Roma students
The previous description shows that, despite the diversity of the circumstances surrounding the experiences of Roma students, the situation of social and institutional discrimination against the Roma community is real and is configured as a common framework that hinders the development of equal trajectories for educational success. In addition, and according to cultural-ecological the- ory (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004; Ogbu, 1991), the values of the group itself also have an impact on educational inequalities through intra-group pressure strategies, such as describing people who achieve educational success as ‘losing touch with their Roma origin’ or accusing them of ‘betrayal’
because they consider it to be contrary to their identity (O’Hanlon, 2010).
Thus, according to Brüggemann (2014), we note that the educational inequalities of Roma students result from the intersection of social and institutional discrimination, the cultural values of the reference group and their ethnic self-image.
In the face of these barriers, and being aware that the continuity of school trajectories depends, to a large extent, on intervention policies and specific programmes (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004;
Bereményi and Carrasco, 2015; Gamella, 2011), we find the need for protective factors for school success (Griffiths et al., 2019) in Roma students, which we define as the personal and social condi- tions that favourably influence Roma students’ access to, and continuity in, higher education. These factors cannot be understood in isolation, but rather their influence must be understood as intersecting – just as the causes of school dropout and exclusion are also intersecting (Vázquez, 2020) and ought to be seen from a processual and relational perspective – giving rise to particular trajectories. Similarly, in agreement with Abajo and Carrasco (2004, 2005) and Gamella (2011), the absence of one or more of these circumstances cannot be considered as an impediment to over- coming the barriers that prevent the participation of Roma people in university studies.
Thus, based on the review of the various research studies that investigate the successful aca- demic trajectories of Roma students, we found different protective factors that we grouped into two dimensions. The first dimension refers to the educational and family context, and the second to the affective-relational context.
Regarding the first dimension, we found the collaborative relationship and openness of the educational centre with families to be essential (Bhopal and Myers, 2009; D’Arcy and & Gallogaw, 2018).
Beyond practical considerations such as the availability of school places and the distance from school to home, continuing access to school education depends on families having sufficient
enough interest and confidence to trust the institutions with the care of their children (Bhopal and Myers, 2009: 304).
The school’s collaboration with the associative network related to the Roma people, which con- stitutes a valuable link between families and educational centres (Alexiadou, 2019; O’Hanlon, 2010; Simić et al., 2019), as well as the cultural knowledge of the teaching staff and management team about the ethnic group and its inclusion in the contents of the school, are also both essential protective factors in this first dimension (Botija et al., 2017; Ferrández-Ferrer et al., 2019; García Fernández, 2017; Peters, 2018). This makes Roma pupils feel recognised and respected and gives greater meaning to their participation and continuity in the different school stages (Carrasco and Poblet, 2019; O’Hanlon, 2010).
Other protective factors are: attending a diverse, non-ghettoised educational centre, with Roma and non-Roma students; experiencing a non-segregated classroom (Brüggemann, 2014; Gamella, 2011; Padilla-Carmona et al., 2017); the integrating/inclusive environment of the educational centre, which is reflected both in the role of the teachers’ treatment; providing experiences of positive evaluation; welcoming and affectionate behaviour, etc.; and the role of accompaniment at key moments in the school trajectory, such as the transition from primary to secondary school or the age of marriage (Clark et al., 2006; Magano and Mendes, 2021).
With respect to the family context, the following are protective factors for school success: the family’s expectations of school success and their involvement in their children’s school life (Gamella, 2011; Rodríguez and Rosquete, 2019; Simić et al., 2019) and a favourable socioeco- nomic status, regarding either the family capital or the availability of scholarships (Goenechea et al., 2020, 2022; Biro et al., 2009; Çiftçi and Cin, 2017). In the same way, other factors that favour academic success are: living in an integrated environment with adequate living conditions (neighbourhood-housing); positive coexistence-neighbourhood relations with the majority popula- tion (Bhopal and Myers, 2009; Magano and Mendes, 2021); and the availability of family role models who serve as examples of ways of life that are different from the traditional one, either because they live the customs in a non-conditional way or because they have a higher level of education (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004; Padilla-Carmona et al., 2017).
The second dimension we observed is related to the affective-relational context. In this dimen- sion, protective factors, such as the relationships the students have with their peers, a shared appreciation of the academic trajectory and continuity of their peer group, especially with non - Roma classmates, are grouped (Gamella, 2011; Simić et al., 2019). We also found the desire to serve as a role model for other ways of being Roma to be a protective factor. The recognition of Roma university students is particularly important, not only in terms of resilience but also as cultural agents (Bereményi and Carrasco, 2015).
Rather than being a passive subject to alienation, Roma students questioned the notion of
‘apayamiento’ related to education and thus engaged in the process of reconstructing this notion. While experiencing themselves as living examples and role models, the reference to their own trajectories seemed to carry a special discursive power (Brüggemann, 2014: 9) Other protective factors in this dimension are the particular life goal of school continuity and the personal commitment and motivation (internal locus of control) of the student, despite the difficulties and pressures of the group towards dropping out and/or not supporting them, as well as initial school successes and their awareness of what it is to be a good student, with a positive self- concept and self-esteem (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004; Rodríguez and Rosquete, 2019). Finally, the presence of social skills, assertiveness, negotiation and communication skills, in order to overcome barriers and experiences contrary to school continuity was also identified as a protective factor. These are skills that allow that: ‘they actively engage in the negotiation about the relationship between Gitano culture and school success’ (Brüggemann, 2014: 10).
Knowing the influence of these factors in specific cases of academic success allows us to design intersecting actions that favour access to, and continuity in, higher education for the Roma people, given their importance for social mobility, freedom and empowerment. Similarly, we believe that focusing research on cases of academic success contributes to redirecting the misconceptions and
stereotypes that consider Roma values incompatible with continuity in higher education (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004; Brüggemann, 2012, 2014; Gamella, 2011; Simić et al., 2019). It also provides us with the necessary tools to design and develop inclusive educational actions. For these reasons, it is preferable to search for protective factors that are gleaned from the comments made by a sample of Roma students.
Methodology Methods
There are no previous works concerning Roma students at the university where the research was carried out. As such, our first aim was to quantify their presence, regarding which there are no data, to subsequently explore the protective factors that have led them to continue studying until they reached the university level.1 We did not have specific data to work with as nationality is requested in the enrolment process, but ethnicity is not, despite being collected in other countries: ‘while some EU Member States have embraced ethnic equality monitoring through the collection of ethnic data, others have been hesitant, expressing legal and moral concerns and as a consequence, current policies on collecting ethnic data remain inadequate’ (Fay and Kanavagh, 2019: 234). We believe, as do these authors, that the lack of disaggregated data in the indicators makes it difficult to obtain more exhaustive knowledge about the situations of discrimination suffered by the Roma people.
Moreover, it also makes it difficult to develop public policies that are better adapted to their reali- ties. This initial difficulty means that we did not have an accurate estimate of the number of Roma students and, as such, we decided to send an online questionnaire to all students.
The fact that the research is limited to this university responds to our commitment to our social and ‘geographical’ responsibility (Lall, 2011). This means that we look to contribute to the devel- opment of our community and make the material and personal resources of the institution available to the public.
This research used a multi-method design, combining and integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches within the framework of a single study. This mixed-method approach allowed us to trian- gulate the information produced and broaden our understanding of a reality that is, by its very social and human nature, intangible (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). Therefore, we propose a mixed methodol- ogy based on questionnaires and in-depth interviews (Abajo and Carrasco, 2005; Goenechea et al., 2020; Brüggemann, 2014; Magano and Mendes, 2021; Padilla-Carmona et al., 2017).
The purpose of including interviews together with the questionnaires responds to the need to understand and delve deeper into the discourses of the participants involved in the reality we are investigating. This requirement, in turn, responds to a vision of inclusive research (Lall, 2011; Nind, 2014, 2017).
The ethical procedures followed in the research respond to the guidelines of the British Educational Research Association [BERA], 2018) and the APA Ethical Principles (2017). Particular care was taken with regard to considerations related to the responsibilities to participants (respect the right to dignity; participants’ voluntary informed consent; transparency; privacy and data stor- age) and the responsibilities for publication and dissemination (making the research findings pub- lic for the benefit of educational professionals and available in a language that makes it locally as well as internationally accessible). The ethical considerations and processes that we developed have allowed us to conduct our research ‘within an ethic of respect for: the person; knowledge;
democratic values; the quality of educational research; and academic freedom’ (BERA, 2018: 5).
Instruments for the production of information
Both the questionnaire and the interview script used were specifically designed within the frame- work of this research.
The interviews were divided into an identification part and a semi-structured part containing specific questions about what factors influenced students with a Roma background and the obsta- cles they faced. Content analysis was used, following Mayring (2015), Miles et al. (2019) and Strauss and Corbin (1998). The research team transcribed the interviews and assigned themes (categories). Subsequently axial categorisation and coding matrix were used to find the most nota- ble themes and sub-themes and their relationships. QSR-Nvivo was used for data analysis.
The complete questionnaire consisted of 34 items organised into 5 dimensions: I. Personal data, II. Experience at the university, III. Protective factors against school failure, IV. Cultural identity and V. Improvement measures. In this paper, we focus on the results of the third dimen- sion. The level of reliability of the questionnaire, calculated according to Cronbach’s Alpha, was 0.52, thus reaching an acceptable level of internal consistency. The validation of the questionnaire was carried out, initially, with content validation by means of inter-rater agreement (three Roma researchers and two experts in the field of intercultural education), content validity coefficient (CVC) and content validity index (CVI) analyses, calculated with the SPSS programme (v22). Based on the results obtained in both analyses (CVC and CVI), the items with the highest values
– between 0.95 and 1.00 in the criteria of relevance, comprehension, and ambiguity – were selected, and the experts’ contributions were included.
Participants in the research
The university had more than 22,000 students in the 2018–2019 academic year, consisting of under- graduate, master’s and doctoral students. Our study was aimed only at those who self- identified as Roma. The questionnaire was sent to all students via the university’s distribution lists at the end of the 2018–2019 academic year. After several invitations, we received a total of 45 responses (we considered it very valuable to have 45 responses to the questionnaire, as this is a group whose pres- ence in the university is very limited). Research showed us that the percentage of Roma students who attend the university in Spain is hardly 2% of the total, which equals a total population of 415 Roma people, of which 45 participated in our research (10.8% of the total).
Regarding the process of contacting interview participants, the first strategy was to include a final section in the question- naires requesting their participation and, where appropriate, a way of contacting them. The second strategy was the ‘snowball’ strategy, which consisted of the people who participated in the interview identifying others who could also collaborate. In the first few months of the 2019–2020 academic year, and after a complex search and contact process, 10 individual interviews were carried out.
We believe that the difficulties in locating and contacting this type of student were due to the invisibility of the collective and, in part, due to institutional mistrust. These difficulties have been noted in the literature on an international scale (Condon et al., 2019; D’Arcy and & Gallogaw, 2018), which considers Roma people to be a hard-to-reach group.
Lastly, we note that it was important to have the participation of Roma people in all phases of this research, forming part of the research team and as experts for the validation of the instruments. The participation of people from the group itself beyond mere informants is not frequent, as has already been noted (Leggio and Matras, 2018). However, it does seem to be a growing trend in Spain, where we have known studies (Gimenez et al., 2019) that have also been carried out by intercultural teams.
Traits of the participants
The average age of the respondents to the questionnaire was 22 years old and the majority (77.8%) were women. This is significant if we take into account that gender roles in the Roma community have traditionally been identified as one of the factors causing school dropout (Colectivo IOÉ, 2015). In the case of the interviews, five women and five men participated. All the participants
identified themselves as Roma, even if one of their parents is not. In the questionnaire we found that 37.8% have both parents who are Roma, the same percentage say that only their father is Roma, and 24.4% say only their mother is Roma.
With regard to the qualifications of the participants who answered the questionnaire, 91.2% of them studied degrees pertaining to the fields of social sciences and law, mainly: education (20%), law (15.6%), labour relations and human resources (13.3%), social work (8.9%) and linguistics and applied languages – English (8.9%). This coincides with what was observed in the interviews as 7 of the 10 participants studied degrees in the same fields.
Results
The results obtained are presented and have been organised into five dimensions. Although the quantitative data brought us closer to the issue, we focused the results of the study on the analy- sis of the qualitative data obtained through the interviews as these allowed us to understand the complex way in which Roma students gave meaning to protective factors and to the barriers and obstacles that they face for academic success. The quote identifiers provided information about gender, age, and disciplinary area participants.
Firstly, and with the purpose of offering a general perspective of the protective factors, we included the responses to the following items from the questionnaire: ‘Please rate the extent to which the following factors have contributed to your university studies’, with 1 being ‘not at all’ and 5 being ‘a lot’. The following table shows the averages obtained for each response option (Table 1):
The most important factor for the participants was the positive influence of someone who believed in them and encouraged them to study. This was followed by the importance given to studying by their family and the positive and equal relationship with their secondary school peers. To this question, we added two open questions in the questionnaire; one concerning who was the person who believed in them and encouraged them to study, and the other in which they could point out other different protective factors. In the first case, family and teachers appeared in the highest percentage (73.2%). With regard to the second question, the answers referred to their will- ingness to demonstrate their ability and worth, and to not fulfilling the stereotype or negative expectations towards them which came, on many occasions, from the teaching staff.
Table 1. Protective factors questionnaire.
Protective factors Average score (1–
5)
Standard deviation Positive influence of someone who has
believed in you and has encouraged you to study
4.47 0.9
Importance given to studying by your family 4.22 1.2 Equal/positive relationship with classmates at
primary and secondary level
4.11 0.9
High expectations from primary and secondary school teachers regarding your success at school
3.71 1
Presence of someone in your environment who has served as a role model/example for you
3.20 1
The favourable socio-economic situation of your family
3 0.8
These factors are complemented by the information generated from the interviews and in other items of the questionnaire:
Flexible family models
In the interviews, it was observed that, although they maintain and feel that they own many Roma traditions, the participants had always received support from their most direct family, mainly their father and mother, in order to break away from the stereotypes. Some examples of this are being a woman and continuing to study, not taking up flamenco dancing or singing, or having non- Roma partners. It was also observed that families are integrating more diverse patterns of behaviour, in line with social changes.
‘My family likes to follow their traditions just as I do, but we respect everything else, it’s not.
. . like we have a really old mindset. . . take the tradition of virginity testing, for example. And I haven’t done it, I would have liked to have, but because of . . . circumstances I didn’t do it.
My father took it badly, well, my family, not only my father, because of what I had done, but.
. . I’m still with my family, by their side, they have supported me and they are with me’.
(Woman, aged 20, Social Sciences)
The sense of belonging that the students have with Roma culture and carrying out their customs does not make them feel different. They reject and deny the stereotypes that society has about what being Roma means. For them, being Roma is a way of being in the world that is different from the stereotyped ideas of the majority society. They understand that being Roma allows them to carry out their customs and move through spaces that are denied to them based on racist beliefs and stereotypes.
‘It’s just I think my family and I already lead a ‘normal’ life. It’s not the same for other people, because we Roma people have such a. . . such a bad reputation so to speak, because there are a lot of stereotypes about drugs, and about these types of things. . .But my family, thank God, is a normal family, they follow the tradition of virginity testing and the others work, they are humble, very simple, they don’t. . .’ (Woman, aged 20, Social Sciences).
In fact, these data are in line with the questions included in the questionnaire regarding how they feel about Roma and non-Roma customs. The answers to the questionnaire show that 86.7% of students say that they feel little or no identification with what the majority of society understands as ‘being Roma’.
Family support.
Almost all participants highlighted the support they received from their families to continue their studies. Most of the families were described as humble and hard-working, but with firm intentions for their sons and daughters to pursue higher education.
‘The main thing has been the unconditional support of my parents. It’s something I always say. If my parents had not been there and had not supported me as they have supported me, I wouldn’t have got this far’. (Woman, aged 22, Social Sciences)
The participants told us that their parents insisted that they wanted them to have a better profes- sional future than what they had had in higher education. There were even cases in which older siblings who had stopped studying and had begun working in unskilled professions had motivated them to continue with their studies.
This support can be seen to expand to other members of the extended family. In fact, the students noted that on occasions when their parents could not cover the expenses related to their studies, their grandparents, aunts and uncles stepped in and covered the costs.
When asked in the questionnaire if they consider the importance given to studying by their family to be a factor that had contributed to their academic trajectory, 75.5% (34 participants) said that it was indeed a factor that had significantly contributed to them becoming a university student.
The influence of the socio-economic background
It has been claimed that one of the protective factors for the academic success of Roma students is a favourable socio-economic background and living in an integrated environment with ade- quate living conditions (neighbourhood-housing) (Goenechea et al., 2020, 2022; Magano and Mendes, 2021).
Almost all of the participants (95.6%) who took part in the questionnaire described their socio- economic background as being medium. Only two participants considered their socioeconomic background as low.
In the interviews, the majority characterised their socioeconomic background as medium or medium-low.
‘My father is unemployed and my mother is a singer, so my mother depends on celebrations and the work of singing and she doesn’t have a permanent job. . . my father, as he is unemployed, finds work, but the jobs are always temporary, he is never a permanent worker, right now he is unemployed’. (Man, aged 23, Applied Sciences)
They also noted that they did not have to worry about financially contributing to their family’s livelihood. They had never felt the need to stop studying in order to have to work due to financial needs.
‘The truth is, because I set my mind to it and because. . . I don’t know, my parents have never told me “you have to work”. Maybe we have not been a family with many open doors, but my family has never compromised my future.’ (Woman, aged 22, Applied Sciences)
Moreover, when asked in the questionnaire whether they considered their favourable socioeco- nomic background to be a factor that had contributed to their continuity in education, 33.4% of the students (15 participants) answered that this was the case and 31.1% considered that it had contrib- uted to some extent. In contrast, 35.6% indicated that this impact was little or non-existent.
The peer group
In the review of the research, having friendships with other students who shared the same expecta- tions of academic continuity (Gamella, 2011; Griffiths et al., 2019) was found to be a protective factor. When asked in the questionnaire whether they considered the positive/equal relationship with classmates in primary and secondary school as a factor that had contributed to their academic trajectory, 73.4% said that this was the case. In contrast, only 11.1% indicated that this impact was little or non-existent, and 15.6% considered that the peer group had contributed to some extent.
However, it is noteworthy that in the interviews there was no explicit reference to the influence of the peer group on academic success.
Influence of teachers and schools
Regarding the influence of the teaching staff on the motivation to continue their studies, the partici- pants highlighted the role of teaching staff to have been impactful, above all because of the
expec- tations placed on them and the contact with their families to collaborate in supporting them in their studies. This collaboration is understood to be fundamental and, above all, a responsibility that the school has in order to make families feel accepted and supported in their different expressions of their Roma culture. Due to the discrimination that the Roma people have suffered throughout his- tory from institutions, the justified mistrust of families towards school environments is a barrier that the school must remove through educational actions towards equity and social justice.
Also notable for its particularity is the fact that the participants were in schools where different ethnic and cultural groups were present, and where the teachers were committed not only to the academic aspect but also to the personal and emotional aspect (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004).
‘Once a teacher sent me out of the class because I answered back and was cheeky to her and I thought they were going to kick me out. She said to me, “What is going on with you?
Are you okay? Has something happened?”, to which I replied, “ugh, Inma, I’m sad because today is the anniversary of my grandma’s death”, and she gave me a hug and a kiss. I thought she was going to shout at me but in the end, she was just worried about me, about how I was, and didn’t punish me. That has always stayed with me’. (Woman, aged 22, Social Sciences)
In one case, a participant mentioned the intervention of the guidance counsellor in a secondary school as being impactful for the continuation of their studies.
‘Honestly, I have never been good at school, I have always been one of the naughty students in class, I didn’t like studying very much, I have always been expelled and so on, but one day, one year, a counsellor arrived at the secondary school where I was, and he kind of took me away from the little group I was in. He took me aside one day, talked to me and told me about what was happening and a light bulb went off. I started to go to class and was more involved in school and I started to like economics. That year I took 3rd and 4th year economics and I started to like it. And he asked whether I wanted to do the baccalaureate’. (Man, aged 20, Social Sciences)
Moreover, carrying out awareness-raising workshops on equity and non-discrimination at school is an experience that the interviewees considered to be a protective factor for the continua- tion of their studies at secondary school.
When asked in the questionnaire whether they considered the high expectations of primary and secondary school teachers regarding their success at school to be a factor that had contributed to their academic trajectory, 62.3% considered this to be a factor that had had a considerable influence.
Their own motivation
Another of the protective factors has been personal motivation, which is accentuated by wanting to show that being Roma is not an obstacle to studying higher education.
‘Because since I was a child I have always liked, umm. . ., I want to be a judge, right? And also, a little bit because of the stigma that there is that we Roma are all thieves, whereas, in reality, we are not criminals (. . .). So, apart from that, because I’ve always liked, umm. . . what it is to deliver justice. I’ve always seen things that are unfair and I’ve always got involved in trying to solve them or I’ve tried to help people. . . I’ve always wanted to help people who have problems in that area. That’s why’. (Woman, aged 19, Social Sciences)
One student told us in the interview that when they were younger, they saw a Roma person who had become a Notary. This person was talking about their experience and how they had had to overcome society’s contempt for Roma people and the low expectations they had of them. For this student, this was a decisive moment for their motivation to continue studying and go to university.
This experience shows us, on the one hand, the importance of models and making the success of Roma people in studies more visible. On the other hand, it also shows us a reason for the personal motivation that some Roma people have to demonstrate that being Roma and having university studies are compatible.
The most relevant thing that the explanation regarding the motivation behind the choice of studies offers us is that these initial expectations had not been limited by the fact that they were Roma, neither by their families nor by the teachers from previous educational stages.
Discussions and conclusions
The aim of this study was to understand the views of Roma students at a university in the south of Spain regarding the factors that had enabled them to overcome the initial difficulties they had faced during primary and secondary education and which had acted as protective factors against educa - tional exclusion. In order to achieve this objective, we conducted interviews and questionnaires with these Roma students. We believe that many of the difficulties that Roma students encounter in their academic trajectories are due to the structural and institutional discrimination they suffer because they belong to a Roma ethnic group (antigypsyism).
Although the results from this study are related to the experience of these particular students, we find many similarities in the personal, academic, social and family situations that favoured academic success in primary and secondary education. These situations allowed the students to continue on to higher education and can be considered as protective factors.
In line with the approaches from Fay and Kanavagh (2019) and Simić et al. (2019), we have made visible an unknown reality which allows us to design actions that are more adjusted to the specific situations of Roma students, such as, for example, making academically successful Roma university students more visible. Authors such as Padilla-Carmona et al. (2017) have already insisted on the need to question the subjectivities that assimilate poverty and marginalisation, as well as other offensive stereotypes, with Roma people as an urgent task. This is especially the case when, in reality, the diversity and presence of Roma people in different social spheres such as at university are not seen, but are very much real.
Most of the participants studied Social Sciences, mainly Law, Education, Social Work and Labour Relations. This fact is in line with the results of research by Abajo and Carrasco (2004) and Gamella (2011), who find that, in the successful trajectories of Roma students, there is a majority presence of professions characterised by ‘clear connotations of “giving back” and working with people, linked to the systems of social protection and promotion’ (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004: 145). However, we can also interpret that it may be showing the scarce presence of non-normative stu- dents in STEM degrees and in the field of health; specialisations which, from secondary education onwards, experience segregation mechanisms. Previous studies (Garaz and Torotcoi, 2017) have already noted the concentration of Roma students in social science degrees and suggest that access- ing university for minorities does not guarantee equality but rather that social inequalities are reproduced within higher education, with privileged groups maintaining a horizontal differentia- tion through the access to certain degrees.
In this study, it has been shown that a family’s high expectations regarding their children’s studies and the support provided in their academic trajectory, either through financial and material resources or through encouragement and motivation, are fundamental factors in academic success (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004; Gamella, 2011; Magano and Mendes, 2021). It is a common trait, as showed in the aforementioned research, that a student’s socioeconomic background is medium or medium-low, with there also being positive neighbourly relations and coexistence. The participants
stated that they had received support from their closest environment (Rodríguez and Rosquete, 2019).
The peer group as a protective factor only appeared in the questionnaires through questions with a response option, however, there was no explicit reference to this in the interviews, contrary to the works by Abajo and Carrasco (2004), Padilla-Carmona et al. (2017), which significantly outline this support. Experiences have also not been observed where school-family relations have been taken care of or where there have been collaborative actions between the school, the family and Roma associations (Bhopal and Myers, 2009).
The influence of teachers is also identified in our research, although there are cases where expectations of success had not been met or had been negative, leading to greater internal motiva- tion (Brüggemann, 2014; Clark et al., 2006; Daddow et al., 2013) by the students to dismantle these expectations. Alongside this, their awareness of themselves as good learners and of their ability to study was also observed (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004; Clark et al., 2006; Simić et al., 2019).
Most educational environments respond to non-segregated (but not inclusive) schools and neighbourhoods according to the need to restructure educational practices, policies and cultures in order to denounce and modify the initial barriers that hinder the academic development of Roma students.
Finally, the intersectional, processual and non-exclusive nature of the protective factors is evident (Abajo and Carrasco, 2004; Gamella, 2011; Magano and Mendes, 2021). This is in such a way that the absence of any of the factors does not prevent access to university studies. In fact, we found that when a favourable circumstance was not present – for example, the positive expectations of teachers – it was compensated by other protective factors such as personal motivation (Simić et al., 2019).
Note
1. Other research objectives, which are beyond the scope of this article, refer to the maintenance of the cultural identity of Roma university students and their experience at university (Goenechea et al., 2020, 2022).
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