Publications

The gypsy children education. A proposal for inclusion in

school

García Guzmán, A.

REICE - Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia

y Cambio en Educación

Facultad de Formación de Profesorado y Educación de la

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. 2005.

Research

Spanish

English

Integration of immigrants students

The article approaches to the schooling of gypsy children, an ethnic

group very present in Spain and with a high rate of school and social

exclusion. School absenteeism and failure have a high incidence

among this group, which reinforces, as well, the subsequent

tendency towards social exclusion. It analyzes a study carried out in

2002, which reveals that, even though there has been a significant

change, in relation with the previous study carried out in 1994,

nowadays most of gypsy children are schooled, it is common that

children leave school early after they are 15 years old, something

even more frequent in the case of the girls. It is estimated that only

one of 100 gypsies attends to university.

Among the suggested causes that explain these results, the

following are considered:

a) Related to the school and social context itself which, even

though it is presented as "equal opportunities", it is very

hierarchical and with a monocultural educative focus:

• Low qualification from the teachers for multicultural

education.

• Lack of representation of this minority in schools.

• Strong aversion towards gypsy students.

• Lack of socio-affective communication between teachers and

gypsy students, who have different relation strategies, and

lack of information and preparation from the teachers.

b) Related to their own families:

• Scarce school traditions of this group for everything related to

schools and the educative aspects of their children.

• Scarce family support for the subjects taught in schools.

• Lack of communication between families and schools.

• Poverty and marginality, being the latter one of the main

causes of school absenteeism and failure, since, once

they are old enough to work with their parents, children

leave school and "are left for themselves", in an attempt to

overcome poverty.

The article finishes contributing with aspects that should be taken

into consideration when facing the reduction the rates of school

absenteeism and failure, which go through a socio-educative

proposal for an intercultural education.

This work presents an analysis about one of the ethnic groups that

present one of the greatest difficulties in social and school

integration in Spain and Europe, the gypsy ethnicity. This group

supposes the clearest paradigm of how social exclusion is many

times associated, not with the country of origin, but with cultural

identity. The gypsy ethnic group has been considered at school risk

due to the high rates in school absenteeism, dropouts and failure

that present the young students, which redounds to the maintenance

of the social exclusion and continues the discrimination towards this

group. This work analyzes which factors are responsible for this

results, as well as the best ways to solve the problem. An element

that must be highlighted in this material is that, working from the

analysis of the evolution of this group in relation with the subject

matter, identifies two groups of factors that could be contributing into

the problem: those related with the group itself, with the families and

their customs; and those related to the socio-educative context itself.

This way, in relation with the latter, it analyses how from the

dominant culture are transmitted, more or less explicitly, several

messages that intervene or favor the lack of motivation from these

students. The article finishes with a specific suggestion based on a

truly multicultural and intercultural education that promotes

acceptance, respect and appreciation to different lifestyles and

cultures. Moreover, several methodological and didactical

considerations are proposed in order to be considered towards the

execution of an intercultural plan with ethnic minorities in general,

covering that way, the necessities not only from this ethnic group,

but from all those that are not part of the cultural and lifestyle

majority.

Rosario del Rey

University of Seville

Research