learning who they "really" are: from stigmatization to opportunities to learn in greek...

Zvi Bekerman- Thomas Geisen Editors

International Handbook of Migration, Minorities and Education

Understanding Cultural and Social Differences in Processes of Leaming

Chapter 40 Learning Who They "Really" Are: From Stigmatization to Opportunities to Learn in Greek Romani Education

William New and Michael S. Merry

With the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU in 2007, the total popula tion of Roma living in the EU rose to above 7 million, making the Rom in many respects the 28th member nation, albeit a dispersed, territoryless nation with glar ing deficits of self-governance and sovereignty. The EU and other transnational government and nongovernment entities committed considerable economic and political resources to correcting the dire human rights situation for Rom during the accession process for postcommunist nations, but the lack of sustained progress or political will to effect fundamental change in many member nations has put the is sue back on the first page across the EU. Accompanying efforts to improve Jlomani education has produced a plethora of research conducted by and for national and transnational governmental agencies involved in education, human services, and minority rights. A matching set of research has been conducted by local, national, and transnational NGOs, most notably perhaps the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and various organizations affiliated with the Open Society Institute.

While most NGO and government-sponsored research is of professional quality, its core purpose is advocacy or policy analysis, and topics are selected with an eye for furthering these goals. For instance, the ERRC volume, Stigmata (2004), which documents discrimination against Romani students in several European countries, has the intent of supporting its legal actions against local and national governments, and providing rationale for increased enforcement of anti discrimination laws already in place. Recently, NGO research documenting successful educational programs for Romani students has become more common, much of it funded through the Decade of Roma Inclusion (see EU MONITORING AND ADVOCACY PROGRAM, 2007 for example). Compared to research produced by government and nongovernment agencies, peer-reviewed research on Romani education is scant, tending to focus on analyses oflocal and national reform efforts that, in the view of the researchers, fail to address the needs of Romani students. Notable among publications in English are Claveria and Alonso (2003) on Spain, Igarashi (2005) on the Czech Republic,

W. New (181) Beloit College, Beloit, 53511 WI, US

624 W. New and M. S. Merry

Kende (2000) on Hungary, Levinson (2007) on England, and Chronaki (2005) and Zachos (2009) on Greece. All these researchers choose a qualitative methodology, and nearly all evince an explicit commitment to human rights and sympathy for their Romani subjects. But despite the existence of many excellent ethnographies and histories of the Rom, and the widespread popular and governmental interest in Romani issues, most prominent European journals of education are yet to publish an article on Romani education, there are no book-length treatments of Romani educa tion, and publication in the languages of nations with large Romani populations is rare. The contrast between this lacunae and the wealth of research literature on the education of migrant and other minorities in Europe, not to speak of the enormous body of North American research literature on minority education, is striking.

The purpose of this chapter will be to explore the opportunities for learning available to Romani youth in a specific national context. We have chosen Greece as our case, because recent developments there with respect to Romani education are peculiar to the idiosyncratic history and sociopolitical structure of Greece and em blematic of struggles for improved educational opportunities for Romani students across Europe. Choosing to focus on a single national case is motivated by three related notions: (a) opportunities to learn and opportunities for social integration are always inextricably linked to the histories of specific nations; (b) minority educa tion always depends on the specific structures of governance, that is, policy reform, that prevail in these nations; and ( c) efforts toward educational reform are part of the social and economic structure of the nations of which the Rom are a part. There are, of course, some general truths to keep in mind: the Rom everywhere are the object of pernicious process of stigmatization; they are the poorest of the poor, usu ally marginally employed or unemployed; they experience problems with housing; their access to education and health care is very limited, even in countries where ed ucation and health care are supposedly universal; and they are most often believed by majority populations (and media and politicians) to cause their own misery.

We address the question of learning for Greek Romani youth through the psy chosocial construct of stigmatization. According to advocates for Romani rights and scholars, the most damaging kind of school segregation is that which results in a stigma on Romani students that cannot be eradicated, contributing greatly to the social isolation and dreadful living conditions experienced by most Rom. Recent re search provides a conceptual basis for understanding the dynamics of rejection and its many modalities of response, and for understanding the political and cultural un derpinnings of the iterative process of stigmatization. This will allow us to address one of the central issues of Romani education reform, and minority educational reform generally: why does integration or inclusion, per se, not necessarily produce the kind of improved prospects for individual students or for the minority commu nity as a whole that we were led to expect? In our Greek case, we can approach this question by contrasting the learning opportunities for Romani youth in situations of exclusion or "separate and very much not equal," and the learning opportuni ties for Romani youth in integrated, albeit assimilatory, school settings. Data for these cases come from several sources, including ethnographic studies of Romani

40 Learning Who They "Really" Are: From Stigmatization 625

education in Greece, research generated by NGOs, governmental agencies and the courts, historical studies of the Rom, and media reports.

The Rom in Greece: An Historical Tradition of Stigma

The first mention of the Rom in Europe is from an eleventh century hagiography composed on Mt. Athos (in Greece): the Emperor in Constantinople calls upon the help of a group of religious heretics known as the Atsigani, who are "notorious for soothsaying and sorcery" (Fraser 1992, p. 46). From the word Greek atsigani, the other common European terms for designating the Rom-cigan, cikán, zigeuner, tsigani, zingari, cigányuk-are derived. In the thirteenth century, a permanent set tlement of Rom who called themselves "Egyptians" was documented in Western Greece: from this misnaming comes the common English term gypsy, the Spanish term gitano, the Bulgarian gjupci, and the agjiptani of Kosovo, also referred to as ashkali, derived from Palestine. In current and historical usage, all these terms are derogatory, but the extent and quality of the meaning depends critically on the context of usage: on who is speaking to whom in what place and it what circum stance. While terms like cikán (Czech) and zigeneur (German) are implicated in long histories of violence and marginalization, politically correct terms like Roma may be implicated in a different history of subjugation: in different contexts, each can contribute to the reproduction of the structures of stigma.

A great deal of evidence about the Rom exists from the Ottoman period, which extended roughly from the mid fourteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. The north Indian origins of the Rom have been known from linguistic evidence since the eighteenth century, but this was never part of the common knowledge about the Rom in the Balkans (including what is now Greece) under Byzantine, and then Ottoman rule. They were perceived as foreigners who spoke an incomprehen sible and private language of unknown origins, engaged in various exotic cultural practices, were "black as Indians" (Marushiakova et al. 2001, p. 68) and had as low a regard for their multiethnic Balkan neighbors as their neighbors had for them. Notwithstanding their social isolation, the Rom were an intimate part of that mul tiethnic society, with complex social and religious relations with other groups and with the governing authorities. The northern provinces of Macedonia and Thrace which did not come under direct Greek rule until the twentieth century and are the most ethnically diverse regions of Greece-have historically been home to the larg est population of "Greek" Rom, though many were more closely associated with either Bulgarian or Turkish (Muslim) communities.

During Ottoman rule, the Rom had a special status and the same measure of autonomy accorded to other groups, related in part to whether they claimed to be Christian or Muslim, or neither. Most Rom appear to have followed a seminomadic lifestyle, usually settling in or near a town during the winter months: the efforts of the Ottomans to curtail nomadism related to the difficulty of collecting taxes from


nonse~e~tary_ populations. But the wandering of the Rom was a very important part of their identity, for themselves and for others. The Rom provided needed services ~o the t.owns and cities they visited during the warm months: they had special skills in music and dance, metalworking, fortune telling, and sale and training of animals to name a few occupations. They also took on "dirty work" that others did not want. Despit~ their ongoing and important social relations with non-Rom (gadje), they were-m the words of a nineteenth-century Bulgarian historian-"despised by th~ Turks and hated by the Christians ... [T]he surrounding population views the Gypsies as everywhere else-an in impure, intellectually and morally inferior race" ~quoted in Marushiakov~ et ~l. 2001, p. 75). What the Rom thought about the gadjo is not known, but one ~1ght infer some degree of reciprocity of feeling, along with a keen awareness of their vulnerability to hostility from the majority population.

Stigmatization and Identity Threat

Multiple definitions of stigmatization are in circulation, but for our purposes we empl?y t~e fol~owin.g definition provided by Pryor et al. (2004, p. 436): "A person ~ho rs stigmatized is a person whose social identity, or membership in some so cial. category, call~ into question his or her full humanity-the person is devalued, s?o1!ed or flawed in the eye~ of others." As a social psychological process, stigma t1Za~10n depends on the ambivalence of the dominant group-ferocious prejudicial fee!m~s coexist with nearly insurmountable defenses to any self-understanding of preiudice=and on the double-bind in which relentless discrimination is internalized by individual members of the targeted group. Stigmatization tends to be viewed ei ther as a psychological process, originating in false generalizations about the nature of a perso~ .or ~ gr?up and remediable through education, or as a sociopolitical ~rocess on~~atmg m exploitation and subordination, remediable through revolu tion or political reform (Gaines and Reed 1995). In the first explanation, derived from A.llp~rt's (1954) landmark work on prejudice, one supposes that eradicating the prejudice of the "stigmatizers" might undo the process of stigmatization and that pre~udice, insofar as it is grounded in false beliefs and cognition, ought to be responsive to the right kind of teaching. . Th~ socio?ol~tic.al ~gumen~, o~ the ot~er hand, depends more on systemic, un intentional discrimination, which rs certainly a feature of the stigmatization of the Rom and other vulnerable minority groups. In Greece, for instance, the near com plete unavailability of adequate housing for many Rom results in their continued residence around garbage dumps and polluted industrial sites, reinforcing the ste reotype that the Rom do not wish to be like or live near civilized people (Guy 2009). ~ut the ~gument for systemic discrimination, without an accompanying explana tion for ~terpersonal dimensions of discrimination, is not adequate to account for the persistence of discrimination and its effects even after sociopolitical reforms have been achieved.

40 Leaming Who They "Really" Are: From Stigmatization 627

The history of the Rom in Greece and the Balkans suggests that stigmatization is social, psychological, and political at the same time, and highly adaptive to chang ing circumstances. That is to say, prejudice against the Rom has survived, undi minished, radical regime changes, alternations in ethnic identity and organization, efforts at eradication, ups and downs in economic fortune, language change, reloca tions and dislocations ... the history that is lost to forgetfulness (and re-education) appears to have been remembered in the structures of stigmatization. Link and Phelan (2001) identity five necessary components for the experience of stigmatiza tion: (1) distinguishing and labeling differences; (2) associating differences with negative attributes ( or stereotypes); (3) separating us from them; ( 4) status loss and discrimination; and (5) the dependence of stigma on power. Applied to Romani stu dents, the process begins with the labeling of educational differences; associating these differences in academic ability with the established Gypsy stereotype (which these differences both confirm and extend); physically and symbolically separating the affected children from "our children" (upon whom they might have negative effects); and resulting in, or confirming, the low status of the Roma child (and com munity), which serves to justify discrimination. The predicament for the stigma tized individual and group is constant because the mechanisms for discrimination, and for legitimating discrimination, are flexible and extensive. "There are many ways to achieve structural discrimination, many ways to directly discriminate, and many ways in which the stigmatized person can be encouraged to believe that they should not enjoy full and equal participation in social and economic life. Moreover, if the mechanisms that are currently in place are blocked or become embarrassing, new ones can always be created" (Link and Phelan 2001, p. 380).

The operation of stigmatization is associated with scores of negative affective and cognitive consequences, all impacting academic learning. Padilla (2008, p. 25) summarizes prior research in saying that

the [stigmatized] person may experience a wide range of emotions such as feelings of depersonalization, lack of belonging, anger, frustration and depression .. .If the person experiences negative evaluations because of the stigma associated with their ethnic group from multiple sources-peers, teachers, mass media-the person may also experience an increased arousal level in similar social contexts in which they have felt threatened on other occasions. Thus, highly stigmatized individuals may experience generalized threat in many social contexts.

Other researchers report depersonalization, a sense of meaninglessness, lethargy, reduced affect, and self-awareness: that is, stigmatization produces emotional numbness (Twenge et al. 2003). The operation of stigma, as a system of aversive discrimination, may also produce traumatic stress with long-term physical and psychological consequences (Carter 2007; Butts 2002; Hicks 2004). For those individuals least able to adapt, stress responses can be severe, including intrusion of memories and thoughts of the initial injury, hypervigilance, difficulty sleeping, depression, and anxiety. Even when symptoms are less severe, the experience of persistent stress has negative psychological and behavioral effects, which may serve in practice to reproduce the stereotypes upon which the stressing acts of dis-


crimination are based. One might think of behavioral stereotypes as the accumu lated response to being placed in aversive situations, turned back on the victim as a reinscription of the original injury. According to Derks et al. (2009), social identity threat impairs cognitive performance generally by lowering motivation and invest ment in performance in high-status domains (like school), and increases the likeli hood of individuals removing themselves from the threatening situation.

Rejections of all kinds are a threat to what appears to be a universal human goal of being valued, accepted, and belonging (Smart Richman and Leary 2009). The generalized outcome of rejection are "hurt feelings," often resulting in heightened desire for relationship, urges to defend oneself against the source of hurt feelings, or avoidance of further rejection by withdrawal. Individuals adopt different strategies or behaviors dependent on their own particular character or circumstances, and on the basis of specific social conditions. For instance, stigmatized individuals who be lieve that they are somehow in the wrong, that they caused their own hurt feelings, and who have some hope or faith in the possibilities of repairing the relationship, or a belief that repair of the relationship is essential to their well-being, are likely to put most of their energy in reparation. This may take the form of compliance, dissimu lation, accommodation, behavioral change, change in appearance and presentation. In a racial context, authors such as Fanon (1967) are likely to see this strategy as a sign of self-loathing, or, in Allport's terminology, as "intrapunitive" (Gaines and Reed 1995). When individuals perceive rejection and the threat to well-being as chronic, pervasive, and unfair, and hold little expectation that valuable relationships with the aggressive parties could be successfully maintained, they tend to adopt either a confrontational or avoidant mode of "antisocial" response (Smart Richman and Leary 2009). For most Rom in Greece, the experience of rejection by members of the dominant culture is an everyday occurrence. And the realities of systemic discrimination in housing, education, health care, and civil rights are unremitting.

Clearly, stigma operates generally to decrease the potential for learning of those who bear the stigma, particularly in high-status domains. But there are significant differences in how stigma is experienced, and how its consequences are distributed, for Romani students in different kinds of settings and at different developmental levels. We are interested here to make distinctions with respect to learning between highly segregated settings and integrated settings. These distinctions will also bear on the destiny of the Rom as a culture and people: it is a somewhat paradoxical result of their long history of ostracism and avoidance that the Rom have escaped the total assimilation into majority populations that has been the fate of many other small ethnic groups, with the concomitant "extinction" of their "small languages" and life-ways (Marushiakova et al. 2001; Hancock 2002; Petrova 2003).

An integral counterpart to international imperatives to improve educational qual ity for Romani youth is the imperative to "preserve" the Romani culture in doing so. Linking phenomena of social identity threat to notions of self- and group-affirma tion provides some insight into how differently positioned Romani students might respond to their educational milieu. Successful affirmation of either individual or group identity can serve as an antidote of sorts to the demoralizing effects of stigma-


tization, and sustain motivation to achieve, even in difficult circumstances (Crocker et al. 1998; Derks et al. 2007).

Of course, the extent to which individuals are identified by themselves or others with a social group varies as a matter of personality, history, and context. Individu als with low-identification with a low-status group--for example, the Romani stu dent in a regular Greek classroom studying Greek-may choose to stress strategies of self-affirmation-for example, learning to read and write Greek as well as his or her Greek peers-and downplay his or her Romani identity. Recalling the psy chological ambivalence of dominant group prejudice, in league with Greek cultural pressures toward democracy and tolerance, we can predict considerable sympathy from teachers and fellow students for this strategy. But, Derks et al. (2009, p. 199) suggest that

[a)lthough individual upward mobility is often seen as providing the royal road toward achieving large-scale equal opportunity and social change ... there is ample reason to believe individual mobility is not sufficient. That is not to say that it is not important for individual group members to strive for high performance in status-defining domains. However, to achieve more widespread social change it is crucial that successful upwardly mobile mem bers of stigmatized groups remain concerned with the welfare of their groups.

But do the ingrained structures and processes of stigmatization allow for any large measure of continued identification with their group by upwardly mobile individu als? What remains unclear is whether there are other routes to more widespread social change that do not require of Romani students that they relinquish their mem bership in Romani community life and their claims to a Romani identity.

Exclusion and Inclusion of Romani Students in Greek Education

Romani education in Greece is of generally deplorable quality, but there are signifi cant differences between the worst cases-outright school exclusion-and the best cases-integrated, albeit assimilatory, schooling with some degree of extra support for Romani students. Looking closely at these two poles helps us to understand the differential workings of stigmatization in a complex society, and how the oppor tunities to learn are structured, and for what purpose, in different locations in this society.

Examples of Exclusion-Nea Kios and Aspropyrgos

In 2000 in Nea Kios, an agricultural village of slightly more than 2,000 inhabitants located in the Peloponnese, local authorities evicted the Roma from their town, including the schools. In 2005 in Aspropyrgos, an industrial town just northwest of


Athens, with a population of around 27,000, local authorities and parents refused entry to Roma students to a public elementary school, and instead built a small fa cility for the exclusive attendance of Romani students. These cases are emblematic of the strategies of local authorities, rural and urban, across Greece with respect to Romani education, and of the tenuous relationship between local municipalities and populations and the Greek central government. In both Nea K.ios and Aspropyrgos, the Romani population is especially impoverished. Local people in these towns tend to think of "their" Rom as outsiders, not belonging by right to their communities, and not deserving of a share of the inadequate public services available.

Nea Kios

After the Greek assault on Turkey ended in catastrophe, the 1922 Treaty of Lau sanne required a massive population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Nea Kios was founded by Greek refugees from K.ios, an ancient city on the Black Sea in what is now Turkey. The integrity of the local community is grounded in proud memories of these refugee origins, and the attempted expulsion of Rom from Nea Kios is rationalized in terms of restoring/protecting this core identity from pol lution. Not coincidentally, the legal rationale for the eviction of the Rom was an administrative sanitary regulation by which they found the Rom living in Nea Kios to be a "health hazard" (Petrokou and Dimitrakopoulas 2002). Within a month, the Greek Ombudsman, prefect-level prosecutors and politicians in Athens were involved in the case, all with the purpose of persuading authorities in Nea K.ios to desist in their openly "racist" policies. Formal complaints were issued, but they lan guished in the Courts before being dismissed (without notice to the complainants) in 2005 (Greek Helsinki Monitor 2009), signaling that the continuing, though now somewhat relaxed, segregation of the Rom in Nea Kios is, if not legitimate, beyond the reach or concern of nonlocal Greek authorities.

Upwards of 100 Romani families live in the Argolis prefecture in and about Nea K.ios. About 30 families live on land they own, though most of them have not built permanent houses. Others live in olive orchards, and about 30 families live on pol luted public land next to an olive oil processing refinery, which also serves as an illegal dump. Families live in shacks made of various materials, with little in the way of running water or sewage facilities. The children of this settlement sporadi cally attend a school operated by Greek teacher and Romani rights activist. Children from other settlements attend nearby Greek schools, but very few continue past elementary grades (Petrokou and Dimitrakopoulas 2002). Representatives from the local police and the Director of Primary Education described the possibilities for Romani education as dim, due to the shortcomings of the Romani students and their families:

Roma families don't really want their children to attend school. They only enroll to get the benefit and they never come again .... Roma students are dirty and they smell. Other children don't want to be friends with them ... [They] are free to attend any school they . . . . ~!:Int h11t th,:,. 1),...,_ ...... ....... ,...1 •• -+ ... -'- "-- :_ ... • · ·

631 40 Learning Who They "Really" Are: From Stigmatization

problem with them. There is no racism in the schools of Argolis. (Petrokou and Dimitra kopoulas 2002)

All the requisite conditions of stigmatization are clearly presen~ in Ne~ Kios._ Ro mani children are identified as different from Greek children; their p_e~ceived, differ ences are associated with and reinforce the Gypsy stereotype (families d~n t want to send their children to school or to integrate, children smell and are duty); the distinction between "our" children and Gypsy children is articulated; the Gypsy children lose status by virtue of overt discrimination and their failure at high-status activities like schooling; the process is legitimated and enforced through channels of official power, including housing regulations, policing, and the labor market.

Aspropyrgos

Barring enrollment of Romani students in the elementary schools of Aspropyrgos has been ongoing for more than a decade, accompanied by persistent protest from Greek and international NGOs and typically ineffectual responses from the Greek Ombudsman and the Ministry of Education. In July 2005, two school headm~sters provided a rationale for not allowing Romani children in their schools (International Helsinki Federation 2006, p. 2):

These children live in a place they have occupied illegally, a place for deposit~~ garbag~, without electricity and without water. As a consequence o! these wretched hvmg_ ~ond1- tions, the children have skin conditions ... and many other illnesses, sue~ as hepatitis _and also diseases passed on to them by rat bites .... We w~uld also report the vigorous re~cttons of the Parents' and Guardians' Associations and remind you that be~_een the Panties and Gypsies there is a vendetta, which ... led ... to the loss of o~e. Romani life ... [A] commonly acceptable solution needs to be found by competent authorities.

When the "competent authorities" did not provide a solution by the opening o: school non-Romani parents protested vehemently the inclusion of any Romaru students in "their" schools, boycotted the school, and forcibly prevented th~ entry of any Romani students, resulting in a police presence to protect_ these children, though there were reports that the police stood by when ~on-Romaru parents pushed and taunted Romani children. Late in October, Romani parents were pressured to agree to send their children to an annex some distanc~ fr~m the re~ular element~ schools and the Romani settlement (International Helsinki Foundati_on 20~6), which they began attending. At this time, the regular school reopened without its former Romani students. .

The eventual solution to the dilemma in Aspropyrgos was the co~s~ction of three new buildings exclusively for the elementary education ?f~omaru children. A visitor (DeviousDiva January 2007) reported that the Romani children

are sent to this "special" school where the teaching hours are ... short, 8am until 12.30pm. The teachers ... are there for a year at best and are then moved somewhere else. As there are only three rooms, children of different ages are taught in the same classroom.~ .. There are 50 children enrolled there but most of the time attendance hovers at around 50 Yo. As one of


days or more .... This is impossible to do when most of the families here have no telephone. They ... do not have the means to check up on them and there are no social workers to cover the school. So the children just don't turn up or appear sporadically and that's the end of it.

This resulting class-action suit eventually found its way to the European Court of Human Rights (2008), which ruled in Sampanis et al. v. Greece that the policy of forced segregation in Aspropyrgos violated Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination in general, in connection with Article 2 of Protocol 1, which guarantees the right to education. In addition, the Greek government was found to have failed to provide an effective remedy, in vio lation of Article 13. Immediately following the Sampanis decision, the municipality renamed the annex 12th primary school, but only Romani students were enrolled. The facilities were repaired following vandalism over the summer, and chemical toilets and water were provided (for a short time) when representatives visited from the European Commission on Racial Intolerance (ECRI). While the school remains completely segregated and unequal in terms of the resources-in continued viola tion of the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights-the arrangement has been approved by the Greek ministry of education and Ombudsman (Greek Hel sinki Monitor 2009).

What do Romani children, who are excluded in these ways from regular school ing, learn, and how can we characterize their experience of learning? On one hand, most of the elementary-age children in Nea Kios, Aspropyrgos, and many other similar municipalities across Greece have limited direct contact with non-Roma people and their cultural byways. They grow up speaking some combination of Ro manes and Greek, they are exposed to the cultural practices of self- and group-affir mation common to their communities, they are cherished by their own parents and relatives, and often even by their teachers in Romani schools, and they have little basis for comparison by which they would judge their life conditions to be intoler able. This may protect them from some aspects of stigmatization--overt rejection, hurt feelings, depersonalization, self-loathing-but they are of course still subject to separation from the majority, to status and opportunity loss, and to general and pervasive disempowerment. What they do not learn, among other things, is how to read or write, how to do math, Greek history, and perhaps most importantly with respect to future prospects, they do not learn how to comport themselves as Greeks, essential tools for access to the language and social capital of power (Delpit 2006). And eventually, the protection against the most personal injuries of stigmatization provided by the insulation of their community must prove insufficient. The lives of even insulated Romani children are marked by incidents of overt discrimination and violence, like the actions of non-Romani parents toward Romani children at tempting to enroll in school, and by the inescapable correlates of poverty: hunger, excessive cold and heat, illness, and mortality. By early adolescence there is also inevitably increased personal contact between Romani youth, very few of whom stay in school, and non-Romani persons, and this contact tends in places like Nea Kios and Aspropyrgos to feature the worst expressions of prejudice and derogation. From these experiences, Romani youth learn who they "really" are in the world and L ........... - ..J_.£" __ J "-'----


Examples of lnclusion-Flampouro and Agia Varvara

In the remote village ofFlarnpouro northeast of Thessaloniki in ~acedonia, a pre dominantly Roma community has flourished since at least t~e nineteenth century. Nearly all the students in the elementary school :ire Roma~, but mos~ g~aduat~s go on to an integrated secondary school a few miles away in t~e provm~ial capi tal. Academic performance and graduation rates of Flarnpouro s Romani students compare favorably to Greek averages (Zachos 2006). Similarly, Agia Varvara, at the northwestern edge of Athens, features a long-standing and economically stable Romani population. Local elementary schools include sizable Romani-as well ~s immigrant-minorities, there are some special programs to support ~he academic progress of Romani students, curricular materials.focusing ?n ~omani culture, and a general concern among faculty and administration to maintain an atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect (New 2004).

Flampouro

Flampouro is a farming community of slightly more than 1,000 residents, the site o~ yearly music and cultural festivals that draw many performers, local non-Rom~ visitors and tourists. Though Flampouro's Rom are sedentary, not corresponding to the ;torybook Gypsy wanderer, the village has an internatio~al reputati~n. ~s a Romani heritage town (McDowell 1970). As a center fo~ Rom~ cultural activities, Flampouro also has importance for the regional Romani population. Zachos (20?6) has documented the political and educational history of the Rom of Macedonian Flampouro, focusing on (a) the atypical success ofRo~ani students, (b) the estab lished, sedentary status of the region's Rom ( contrasting to the ~t~reotype of the Rom as a nomadic people), and (c) the political awareness and activism of the local Rom, founded on experience during World War II in the resistance, and re~ated as sociation with the left-oriented National Liberation Front and the commumst party. According to Zachos (2006, p. 24), the egalitarian, antidi~criminatory ethos pro moted by the communist party in its earlier days served to lift the Rom

out of passiveness, since it seems that the new wo~ldview and ~he new supplies with ~hich these people confronted life and society after their contact _with th~ people an~ the ideas of the Left, altered their criteria and forced them to reconsider the~ value~, attitudes an_d behaviors. These people were armed with an optimistic view of life t~at. increased their combative spirit as well as their resolution to work in order to improve their living standards.

The "conscientization" that Zachos describes has been associated with s_uccessful resistance to stigma and discrimination (Freire 1970). It s~ems. to be an 1IDporta~t organizing principal, combines with of a particular set of historical and geographic characteristics, that has produced a state of affairs in which most ~oung Rom fro~ Flarnpouro are literate, and many have gained positions of authority and respect in

the region.


Multiethnic Macedonia has been the locus of national identity conflict since Greece assumed control from Bulgaria in 1913 at the end of the Second Balkan War. The Greek government employed education as a primary means of assimilat ing the diverse populations of Macedonia into the Greek nation: language and his ~ory were par~ount concerns. An elementary school was established in Flampouro m 1914, where its monolingual Romani children were educated to become Greeks. No!ably, given Zacho~ 's thesis of political conscientization,data are indicating that until 1948, the educational outcomes for Romani students in Flampouro were typi cally of those of other Greek Roma, but since that time enrollment and graduation have steadily risen. Flampouro itself has a reputation for offering "a secure environ ment free from intense ethnic conflicts and annoying, offensive behavior" (Zachos 2006), but Romani high school students are exposed to the typical run of derogatory treatment, though this is undoubtedly tempered by the longstanding residence and political participation of Romani people in the area.

Agia Varvara

Like Flampouro, the Romani community of Agia Varvara has a long continuous his t?ry in one location, and has achieved modest levels of social prosperity and educa tional success. The municipality is an active member in a network of Greek munici palities working on issues of Romani social integration, has received considerable funding for its Romani projects, the schools are integrated, most Romani students graduate from secondary school, and some onto university and professional studies. :he P_an Hellenic Gypsy Cultural Association, still very active today, was founded in Agia Varvara in 1939 and continues to be headquartered there. The population of the elementary school in Agia Varvara is approximately 30% Romani with also a significant population of immigrant children from Albania and Russia. Most of the R~mani ~tu~ents spend one period a day working with a specialist on language arts, since this is the area of instruction in which the Romani students have or are perceived to have: the most difficulty. It is also the most important subject' in any Greek school. While the teachers responsible for Romani students sometimes com plain about the lack of resources and their lack of training in Romani culture and language, they are highly attentive and sympathetic to their students, both in their own classes, and advocating for them in other classes. The faculty is aware of the school's status as a model for Romani education in Greece: many express dismay at t?os~ aspects of the mandated curricula which are less than ideally multicultural, which rs to say, the entire state-mandated curriculum, in which an unproblematic and uncontested Greek identity is presupposed and strongly promoted. Some fac ulty members were, however, much less charitable in their assessments of Romani parents, fearing and resenting their complaints, especially the threat of being called a "racist," and showing considerable disdain for the "family life" that led to home work not being done, and to occasional extended absences (New 2004). 011e Romani graduate of the school, Christos Vassileiou, has gone on to become


to be working in the medical field," he says, modestly recounting his life history of overcoming insuperable obstacles and achieving the impossible (Gerasimos 2009). "If you are a Gypsy, you cannot expect help from any quarter. You come across only walls and locked doors. Throughout your journey you need to keep your ears closed and remain committed to your goal." He attributes a great deal of success to being brought up in Agia Varvara, where there was the possibility of integrated, nondiscriminatory schooling, where the everyday psychological violence of racial stigmatization was mitigated by the presence of nonstereotypical Romani adults, and other youth, and where exposure to mainstream Greek life was available to a Romani child. Where other successful Romani students have fully assimilated into the Greek mainstream, and renounced their subordinate Gypsy identities and associates. Vasilleiou devotes some time and professional energy to the respiratory health of Romani youth.

The Romani students of Flampouro and Agia Varvara do learn, as well as other Greek students, the lessons of school: most importantly, they learn how to read and write Greek, and how to "be" Greek. Some of the factors that at least partially protect the minority students in these locales from the debilitatin? eff~cts of gen eral stigmatization are economic stability; an established presence ma single place; some degree of political awareness and organization; an appreciation for their eth nic/cultural identity; relatively civil relations with their gadje neighbors; and the availability of mature models of successful navigation of educational and social systems that do not favor Romani success. In the five-part scheme oft_he stigm~ti zation, perhaps the most important levers for change are agency-as m not being completely subject to the exercise of the power of a hostile other-and the resources to avoid the full measure of individual or small group identification with the worst elements of the Gypsy stereotype.

But success poses a challenge to those minority individuals positioned to achieve it and to the Romani minority as a whole. In a classroom in Agia Varvara, for in stance, a teacher asked the students, more than a third of whom were Rom, if any could speak a language other than Greek. Several raised their hands, but all of them answered that they could also speak English-an overstatement at the least-and none volunteered that they could speak Romanes, or Albanian, or Russian (New 2004). Dr. Vasilleiou attests to the assimilatory success of his education, in which his volunteerism and concern for the oppressed can be easily understood as expres sions of Greek virtues: "At school I was taught Ancient Greek History. Greece is my homeland, my home. And if the need arises, I will defend her" (Gerasimos 2009). While an educated Rom in Athens might have opportunities to disappear into the mainstream society, an educated Rom in Flampouro might well-as most educated rural Greek youth do-emigrate to either Thessaloniki or Athens (Zachos 2006). For members of low-status groups, performance in status-defining domains like school presents in the best case a challenge to self-affirmation, and in the worst case the "categorization threat" that one's affiliation with the stigma attached to the ~oup will make the challenge insuperable. Individuals are prone, in this situ ation, to downplay the extent to which their ~~i.vi~ual ~erfo~~ce ~~~~.~~~


as meritorious, as potentially free from stigma (Derks et al. 2007; 2009; Merry and New 2008). There may be reason to question the common wisdom that the upward mobility of individuals from vulnerable groups contributes to large-scale equal op portunity or lessening of the ingrained processes of stigmatization. Whether the situation of the children ofNea K.ios and Aspopyrgos can be improved without the active concern of the successful students of Agia Varvara and Flampouro is also an open question.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have explored the learning and life experiences of a vulner able minority group-the Rom of Greece-in the context of an historical, multi dimensional theory of stigmatization. For around a thousand years, various Ro mani groups have lived alongside-though usually at some distance-from their multi ethnic neighbors in the Balkans, and the complex heritage of these historical relationships can still be observed in Greek society today. Contemporary social psy chological theories of stigmatization describe a multipart, self-reinforcing system of prejudice and power that serves to keep those considered somewhat "less than human" (Goffman 1986) in their place. The psychological consequences of stigma tization for youth are many, but all converge in decreasing material opportunities to learn, and further, disincline stigmatized Romani students to engage in school learning even when it is available. Stigmatization can have differential effects on individual and group fortunes, depending on local circumstances. We examined four cases of Romani education in Greece-two in which extreme prejudice led to school segregation and exclusion for impoverished Romani communities, and two in which more successful Romani communities achieved great levels of social integration and academic success.

Where physical, psychological, and structural violence is rife, and educational opportunities very poor, Romani youth usually grow up without mastering even ba sic academic skills; there is also a tendency to avoid contact with non-Romani per sons as much as possible, and to reproduce the socioeconomic conditions of scarcity that characterize their parents' lives. While ethnic identity might be preserved under such conditions, it is a beleaguered and degraded identity, fodder for the continuing cycle of stigmatization. The consequences of life in extreme poverty themselves illness, lack of access to clean water, malnutrition, for example-have the effect of validating for the legitimacy of the stigma for those prejudiced against the Rom. The_ inclusion of children with lice and other infectious diseases in public schools, for instance, can be represented as a "nonracial" concern, and justification for ex clusion, in contexts-like Greece generally-where systemic racism is generally not recognized and often vehemently denied at local levels and in official circles.

In Flampouro and Agia Varvara, the educational outcomes for Romani students are more positive, and insofar as individual success signals acceptance of conven- ... ~ - -· _ 1 r, 1 • 1 • •, • .• ...-.. • , • , ~ , • • • • .


may escape many of the consequences of stigma and stereotype. But while it ap pears that these particular communities are relatively self-sustaining as enclaves of "model" Romani life, there are few signs that the existence of these communities is much benefit to the poorest-indeed the majority--0fRomani people in Greece. The example of Rom who have "pulled themselves up" and live (more or less) like other Greeks may do as much to strengthen the stereotype of the "bad" Gypsy which serves as a rationale for the subjugation of those who are not able to rise above appallingly adverse circumstances. In fact, the complete absence of any pos sibility of self-improvement for those who live in places like Nea Kios or Aspropyr gos can then be reinterpreted-at personal and institutional levels-as symptoms of Gypsy irresponsibility, indolence, and as evidence of moral and intellectual de ficiency. The presence of a "good Gypsy" may thus reinforce the stereotype of the "bad Gypsy." This may account, to some extent, for the intractability of segregated, egregiously unequal Romani schooling in Aspropyrgos and many others places in Greece, even in a political climate where intolerance and racial/ethnic inequality are popularly recognized as illegitimate. This reflects, in one way, on the historic nature of governance in Greece, a highly centralized system where decisions are most often contingent on political interests-in the worst possible sense of politi cal-and where the edicts of the central government are not respected or enforced at local levels. In another way, it reflects on the paradoxical flexibility and obduracy of stigmatization, which seems able to alter its form in response to new conditions without diminishing its effects.

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