Unit 4 Anti-discrimination and educational policies and issues of racism

1
Unit 4 Anti-discrimination and educational
policies and issues of racism

• 16 March 2005
• Laura Laubeová
• laubeova_at_chello.cz

2
Unit structure

• Technical issues
• Educational policies twds the Roma
• European
• UK
• CZ
• Antidiscrimination, anti-racism
• Reaction to anti-Gypsyism
• Hancocks arguments cf, WN UNDP
• Role of ERRC - Stigmata, ECHR Strasbourg

3
Technical/organisational

• Readers Required
• Optional - last year reader
• Syllabus
• Presentations
• AQCIs
• send copy to Ilona Alexander-Klimova at
  iklimova_at_hotmail.com

4
European level

• EC E P 1984
• Council of Europe
• ECRI
• FCNM
• Roma and travellers Division (1995)
• Specialist group MG S-ROM (Migration
  Commission)
• Recommendation No 4 on education of Romani
  children in Europe. 2000 (no 17, 2001 on
  employment 2005 on housing)

5
WE

• WE - exclusion, separation, distance, margins,
  ignorance
• Debate on separate vs.. mainstream education
  provision
• Travelling population, incl. playground and
  circus people children provided with notebooks
  for their teachers.
• Separate and Equal, see USA Brown vs.. Topeca
  Board of Education, 1954
• the Supreme Court concluded that segregation had
  a detrimental effect on African American
  children, referring to a number of social
  research reports

6
UK

• UK Thomas Acton Caravan schools
• At present 93 children included, professional
  service, e.g..
• Cambridgeshire Multicultural Education Service-
  Traveller Education Team
• HMI - Arthur Ivats
• CERES- Traveller Education Centre
• OFSTED- David Gillborn
• Guillian Klein

7
CEE

• CE assimilation, after 89 segregation
• EE exclusion, segregation
• Separate vs. mainstream
• E.g. CZ ERRC, Stigmata, ECHR case (1st March
  05)
• Paradox of Romani minority schools (for mentally
  retarded)

8
Education and Roma in CZ

• Push factors for systemic change
• 97 Canada visa imposition
• EU accession
• Obsolete education legislation

9
Bratinka Report on situation of Romani
Community, October 97 (out of 44 tasks 11 were
for Ministry of Education) Over two thirds of
Roma children are in special schools (ss) 75 of
children in ss are Roma   Concept of Romani
integration (7 April 99), adopted in 2000,
reformulated "Conception on Romani Integration"
adopted on 23 January 2002 - no quota but
equalising measures   New Education Act (White
Book) entered in force in Jan 2005 Now its
impact being researched by the League of HR
ERRC, see Romano Hangos Vol.7, No 4, 10 March05,
page 1-2
10
Criticism by UN, EC, US government reports,
international NG0, etc

• UN CERD (Committee on Elimination of Racial
  Discrimination) Concluding observations on CR,
  1998, "de facto segregation (article 5 ICERD not
  fully implemented)
• UN CERD 2000 Report on CR
• UN CRC (Rights of Children)
• UN HRC (Human Rights Committee) Concluding
  observations, July 01, "to eradicate segregation
  of R.ch. in its edu...
• EC Opinion and Progress Reports on CR

11
Role of NGOs
ERRC Ostrava region, 27 times more in Special
Schools, 5 population, 50 in special schools
Save the Children Fund Denied a Future?,
2001 http//www.savethechildren.org.uk/scuk/jsp/r
esources/details.jsp?id366groupresourcessectio
npublicationsubsectiondetails
12
Achievements

• ð   230 - 250 Romani teacher assistants in 2003
  (introduced in 1998) communication barrier,
  partnership teaching, small group work, contact
  with families, etc not systemic, inferior status,
  no educated R. teachers, if not successful-
  blaming the victim
• ð 110 preparatory classes in 2001 (since 1994)
• ð   multicultural/ intercultural edu. programmes
  -NG0s (e.g. www.varianty.cz campaigns, e.g.. Be
  kind to your local Nazi), supported by Ministry
  of Education community schools
• ð  New School, ops www.novaskola.org

13
Threats

• ð     re-standardisation of psychological testing
  in the age of 6 - doubts about the concepts
  itself
• ð     subtractive versus additive bilingualism,
  irreversible cognitive damage (abstract thinking
  concepts - Piaget)
• ð     institutional, unwitting, indirect racism
  denial of racism

14
D.H. and Others v. Czech Republic

• first challenge to systematic racial segregation
  in education in Europe
• brought by 18 Roma children from OstravaAll were
  placed in special remedial primary schools for
  those deemed to have mental disabilities.
• The complaint to the Court in 2000 by ERRC
  intensive qualitative and quantitative research
  into the situation of Roma in Czech schooling.
• research has revealed racial disparities

15
D.H. and Others v. Czech Republic - ERRC research
results

• Over half of the Romani child population is
  schooled in remedial special education
• Over half of the population of remedial
  special schools is Romani
• Any randomly chosen Romani child is more than
  27 times more likely to be placed in schools for
  the mentally disabled than a similarly situated
  non-Romani child.
• Even where Romani children manage to avoid the
  trap of placement in remedial special schooling,
  they are most often schooled in substandard and
  predominantly Romani urban ghetto schools.

16
D.H. and Others v. Czech Republic - ERRC research
results cont.

• standardized testing used for placement in ss
  -- generally takes place only after a child has
  already been marked for assignment to remedial
  schools. The expert "test" is often a stamped
  seal on the decisions of school directors who
  will not accept Romani children into mainstream,
  quality schools.

17
D.H. and Others v. Czech Republic cont.

• The children note in their submissions to the
  Court that assignment to special school forever
  relegates them to second class citizenship.
  Students in special schools receive a markedly
  inferior education. Most graduates are shunted
  into vocational secondary schools limited to
  training in basic manual skills. Few Roma attend
  university. Romani unemployment rates in the
  Czech Republic, as in much of Europe, far exceed
  those for the rest of the population.

18
D.H. and Others v. Czech Republic cont

• Current educational arrangements in the Czech
  Republic also fail entirely to prepare ethnic
  Czech children for life in multi-cultural
  societies. In Ostrava, the Czech Republic's third
  city, despite the fact that Roma comprise
  approximately 10 of the local population, more
  than 15,000 Czech children of primary school age
  attend school every day without meeting a single
  Romani classmate.

19
D.H. and Others v. Czech Republic cont

• The 18 applicants in the case are represented by
  the European Roma Rights Centre and local
  counsel. In challenging their racial segregation,
  the applicants have asked the Court to find that
  they have been subjected to degrading treatment
  in breach of Article 3 of the Convention, and to
  denial of their rights to and racial
  discrimination in access to education, in
  breach of Article 14 taken together with Article
  2 of Protocol 1.

20
Resources

• EU "Race Equality' directive 43/2000 - indirect
  discrimination as apparently neutral measures,
  criteria, practices...
• Thompson Anti-discrimination Practice
  Personal, Cultural, Structural levels
• Arshad et all three models of approach towards
  minority children- Assimilation,
  Multiculturalism, Equity and Rights (Roma viewed
  as a problem, not the school system, no
  anti-discrimination legislation)
• Video on Jane Eliot (Class Divided or Blue
  Eyed) discrimination based on eye colour
• Strategy for improving education of Romani
  Children by Ministry of Edu, 2001 (Strategie pro
  zlepšení vzdelávání romských detí, verze 2001)
  http//www.msmt.cz

21
(No Transcript)
22
Racisms cont.

• from violent attacks or scapegoating
• to paternalistic crypto-racist assistance to m.
• tendency to deny racism (unacceptable)
• two main meanings
• 1) ideology (beliefs) about racial superiority
• 2) the whole complex of factors which produce
  racial discrimination and sometimes also those
  which produce racial disadvantage
• Cashmore

23
Racism as ideology

• 1. the so called scientific racism of the 19th
  century, manifested for example in the
  publication by Herrnstein, Murray, 1995
• 2. popular racism or common sense racism that
  is based on ethnocentrism, a tendency to believe
  that ones own cultural paradigm is universal,
  neutral and superior to any other culture

24
In other words

• Racism
• 1. denies all difference in the name of
  universality of the human nature, but
  unconsciously it takes back this universality to
  the dominant model
• 2. uses the obvious differences to turn them
  into instruments of domination, exploitation,
  condemnation, exclusion, or extermination.

25
Racisms- cont.

• Racism, in short, involves
• stereotypes about difference and inferiority
• use of power to exclude, discriminate, subjugate
• The Parekh Report, 2000
• Attitudes
• Behaviour
• Structures

Inequality
Prejudice
Discrimination
26
Racisms cont.

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

Prejudice
Exclusion
Discrimination
27
Assimilation and Racism (Bauböck)
 
 
28
assimilationist policies inclusiveness
29
Assimilationist model

• DIFFERENCE DEFICIT
• ASSIMILATION
•  
•   
• COMPENSATORY PROGRAMMES
• Does the individual fit
• into the System or Institution? 
•  

ASSIMILATION
30
Curriculum (Multiculturalism) model

• Cultural Effects
•  CULTURES
• LIFESTYLES ATTITUDES
• PLURALIST
• TOLERANCE AND HARMONY
•  Does the organisation of this institution
• recognise Diversity ?  
•  

PLURALIST
31
Equity/Rights Model

• Social and Political Effects
•  EQUITY PARTICIPATION
• ANTIDISCRIMINATORY
• LIFE CHANCES
• Are people enabled in this institution?
• Do the structures allow for
• achievement, growth and opportunities?

ANTIDISCRIMINATORY