Conferences

The Perverted Effects of the Removal Policy of the “Unwanted”. The Case Study of the Roma Migrants in France

Despite the fact that the Roma migrants in France do not account for more than 20.000 individuals when compared to countries like Italy (70.000), Spain (40.000) or Belgium (40.000), the removal policies of this “unwanted” population has become increasingly harsh. Thus, the deportation of approximately 10.000 Roma every year makes their integration process a challenge. Even though most of the Roma come from Romania and Bulgaria, which makes them European citizens and thus benefiting from the right to move freely through the European Union since 2007, when the two countries joined the EU, this fact is completely ignored and their rights are violated.

The Roma Migrant Children’s Social and Academic Inequalities Mechanism

Being a marginalised, stigmatised and discriminated ethnic group in their countries of origin, the Roma face the same social constraints in their immigration countries: poor access to the labour market and healthcare and difficulties and sometimes even the refusal to enrol children in schools. This paper focuses on Roma migrant families in France through an empiric study of several informal habitats in the Parisian region and in several schools where Roma children are enrolled.

The Intricacy of Social Factors that Influence the Roma Children’s Integration in the French Educational System

For a considerable amount of time, one of the most controversial debates in France in terms of migration has been focusing on the Roma populations. Considering that every year there are approximately ten thousand Roma individuals who are deported from France, the issue of educational and social integration is becoming a serious problem. The Roma populations’ migration is particular as it directly implies the movement of the entire extended family and not merely that of one individual. Hence, this form of migration has an unequivocal impact on their housing situation, which leads to the emergence of slums.

Le milieu socioculturel et la réussite scolaire des enfants rroms en France

Dans quelle mesure, les enfants rroms sont-ils affectés par le phénomène d’absentéisme, de déscolarisation et de l’abandon scolaire ? Néanmoins, d’autres facteurs comme l’identité culturelle et ethnique sont susceptibles d’influencer les trajectoires scolaires. Ainsi, la déficience du niveau culturel de la famille, l’absence des stratégies, mais aussi les attitudes négatives à l’égard de l’école de la part des parents qui furent scolarisés dans des écoles ségrégées, peuvent influencer le processus de scolarité des enfants. D’autre part, des enfants scolarisées dont leurs parents n’ont étaient jamais scolarisés et qui sont donc des analphabètes, n’ont aucune aide parental en terme d’éducation scolaire.

Social and Cultural Factors Influencing the Academic Trajectories of the Roma Children in France

The child’s underprivileged familial and social background is also due to the insufficiency of cultural capital within the family. The family’s cultural shortcomings, the lack of strategies, as well as the parents’ – those who have attended segregated schools in Romania – negative view when it comes to schooling can have a serious impact on the child’s intellectual development. Hence, teachers have more or less expectations from children and the latter adapt to these expectations accordingly.

Roma children’s socio-geographical segregation and schooling

The measures of distancing an “unwanted” population such as evacuations and expulsions toward their country of origin are factors that influence the Roma families’ geographical instability. Notwithstanding these measures, the Roma families are European citizens per se and they can move freely and come back to the informal habitats that they have lived in in their country of migration, which creates a never-ending flow of migrants. In these conditions of socio- geographical instability, the Roma immigrant children’s schooling and academic trajectories are challenged.

Marginalization, stigmatization and exclusion of the Roma Migrants

The goal of this empirical study is to highlight the economic specificities of the Roma migration flow in France, especially since the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union in 2007. Despite the rather small number of Roma immigrants in France, their collective immigration flows have engendered a series of policies of removal to be implemented in France – removal of populations that are considered as “unwanted immigrants”.

Migration, ethnicity and academic inequalities: the Roma child in the French school system

This empirical paper is intended to focus on several levels of analysis of the process of the Roma children’s schooling in France in a particular socio-political context. First of all, the academic inequalities with which the Roma children are faced with are studied from a macro-sociological point of view. Hence, the research highlights the way the characteristics of the French migration policies, which are centred on a selective immigration policy, influence the access to education of the children with an “unwanted” origin. Since 2007, the year that Romania and Bulgaria entered the European Union, the measures that are implemented to distance this already marginalized and discriminated population affect the Roma families’ forced geographical mobility. In such a context of geographical instability, the children’s educational training is both problematic and uncertain.

Education and Identity Norms Conflicts. The Mechanism of Social and Educational Adaptation of Roma Children

The Roma children’s education in France is one of the most challenging issues especially due to their successive de-schoolings. As academic training is the main vector to assimilating the norms and values of society, the impact of forced geographical mobility on the transformation of the Roma children’s societal points of reference is to be questioned. This mixed methodological study is carried out in a longitudinal ethnographic approach on a sample of 80 schooled Roma children living in 6 slums located around Paris.

From Social and Ethnic Origin to Educational Inequalities

As a socialisation space and integration factor, the school contributes to the individual’s to the norms and values of the society. Also, through its functions, the school provides a basic cultural training and ensures the individual’s professional and social integration. Yet, the school represents a space of restrictions, control and surveillance. It demands not merely a cultural code to which the children must abide to, but also a certain type of behaviour that leads to a certain lack of freedom. Thus, the Roma children who are used to a lifestyle without any restrictions and rules imposed by their extended family, must adapt to the constraints and the tension such restrictions engender.

From Isolation and Exclusion to Integration. How to Break Down Community Barriers through Educational Integration

Roma children who have been enrolled in French schools and who managed to walk a part of the path of education on the benches of French academic institutions are a point of interrogation. It is important to highlight how academic participation can forge the child’s identity and how the assimilation of the society’s norms and values that the school upholds can aid in breaking down the barriers of their community and open up the way to integration. Hence, this study focuses on the difficulties that they have to face on this path and the consequences to going from community isolation to educational integration.

Migration, Integration and Identity Changes of the Roma Children Schooled in France

This research examines the education of the immigrant Roma children who attend school in France by focusing on the impact that the transition from a familial to the school environment has on their educational trajectories, on the challenges, transformations and consequences they face. Situations where a specific number of children adapt more easily to their identity dynamics, whereas others face hardships, are highlighted in order to show how their social behaviour is consequently shaped and their future inside their ethnic group, but also in society at large, is influenced.

Dynamique identitaire et stabilité éducationnelle des enfants issus de l’immigration rom en France

Nos questionnements portent sur l'impact des dynamiques identitaires sur la stabilité scolaire des enfants roms et son effet à long terme. On se demande quels sont les changements identitaires des enfants scolarisés et quel est l'impact subi aux différents niveaux sociaux : famille, groupe, école ? On s'interroge, entre autres, dans quelle mesure l'obéissance des enfants aux normes d'une nouvelle identité influence l'investissement des parents dans la continuité du parcours scolaire de leurs enfants ?

Origines sociales et difficultés scolaire : comment construire le rapport de confiance et de collaboration pour mieux réussir à l’école

Dans le contexte français de la politique de migration choisie, les Roms, généralement sans études et sans diplômes représentent une catégorie des migrants non désires. Malgré le fait que les Roms de Roumanie sont, depuis 2007, des citoyens européens, sous le prétexte de l’habitat informel ils sont évacues et expulses sans arrêt. Cette mobilité géographique forcée renforce l’instabilité sociale et maintien les familles des roms migrants dans une position sociale d’infériorité face aux chances d’intégration sociale et génère la rupture du lien social, particulièrement pour les enfants scolarisées. En conséquence, à partir de ces observations, l’objectif de cette analyse est de voir comment ces formes d’instabilité influencent-elle le parcours scolaire des enfants roms en France. Comment ces différentes formes d’inégalités sociales interagissent ensembles et de quelle manière influence-t-elles le décrochage scolaire ?

Rapports de pouvoir et cohésion de groupe : le cas des familles immigrées roms en France

Dans cette recherche, nous mettons en avant les rapports de pouvoir engendrés par le contexte migratoire spécifique des Roms en France, leurs objectifs économiques, la scolarisation de leurs enfants et l'impact que cela peut avoir sur la cohésion sociale du groupe. À partir du concept de l'économie d'identité et de la fonction d'utilité, nous mettons en évidence des comportements économiques collectifs de la communauté rom, basés sur le principe de collaboration et du partage et leurs influence sur la cohésion du groupe.

Le rapport de confiance et de collaboration entre la famille et l’école. Le vecteur de stabilité scolaire des enfants roms scolarisées en France

Dans des conditions de vie extrêmement défavorables et vivant à la marge de la société, les enfants roms ont un taux de scolarisation très faible et un parcours scolaire parmi le plus instable. Les principaux vecteurs de cette instabilité scolaire sont les mesures d'éloignement de cette population d'immigrants étiquetés comme non désires, le refus des parents de garder à l’école leurs enfants, mais aussi la qualité de vie qu’ils ont à l'école. Pour ces enfants issus d'un milieu social précaire et défavorisé, le changement d'environnement social, de la famille à l'école, est accompagné par des difficultés d'adaptation aux nouvelles normes et valeurs sociales de l'école. Car, l'école en tant qu'institution, représente un monde gouverné par des réglés et des normes, un système privatif de liberté des choix individuels.

Coopérer pour mieux réussir. L’impact de la relation de confiance et collaboration sur la réussite scolaire

Les questions portent sur le processus de construction des relations de confiance entre les enseignants et les enfants rom ? Comment la collaboration entre les enseignants et les parents favorise leur investissement dans l'éducation des enfants et comment influence-t-elle leur parcours académique pour favoriser l’accrochage scolaire ? Quel est l’impact de la pédagogie coopérative sur le parcours scolaire?

The Roma Immigrant Children’s Identity Shifts Process within the French Education System and Impact on Social Cohesiveness

This research highlights the close connection between the Roma’s immigration context, the immigrant populations’ economic objectives, their children’s schooling and influence on social cohesiveness. Using a three-year long methodological approach, studying the Roma immigrant population in France, this research shows how the children’s education creates conflicting situations within the community and the impact it has on the ethnic group’s social cohesiveness.

Enfants Roms en France: la transition entre l’espace familial et scolaire

Le changement d'environnement social engendré par la transition entre l’espace social et l’espace scolaire peut s’avérer problématique pour les enfants roms scolarisés en France, principalement à cause des tensions et conflits générés par ce processus. L'espace social des enfants roms qui habitent en bidonvilles est marqué par des relations de confiance, de collaboration et de partage. Il s’agit d’un monde où chaque individu occupe une position sociale bien déterminée et à l'intérieur duquel les actions sociales ont une orientation économique en priorité : la maximisation des revenus et la minimisation des dépenses. Pour les enfants enclavés dans cet espace social caractérisé par des facteurs socioculturels et historiques spécifiques, la scolarisation est synonyme d'un changement normatif et culturel.

Social mobility of the Roma immigrant children’s and impact on social cohesiveness

This research shows two main risk factors for social cohesiveness. On the one hand, the Roma children who are schooled are increasingly less involved in the production of financial and economic resources for the group, thus creating tensions between the various families making it up. On the other hand, a cultural and ethnic discrepancy is created between the Roma children who are enrolled in school and the other members of the group. As a result of their schooling the Roma children’s ethnic identity is challenged by their new social behavioural patterns.