Analyzing the Discursive Constructions of Roma Children s Educational Reality – A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Hungarian Case through the Lens of Teacher Education

Abstract

This research aims to explore and critically challenge how discourses and narratives explain and justify the inequalities experienced by so many Roma children in Hungary when it comes to schooling. Taking a top down perspective, the focus will not be the lived experiences of Roma children, but rather the critical analysis of the prevalent ways of thinking about the embedding educational realities by those who are mostly involved in its design and delivery. Therefore, decision-makers , politicians , policy and research analysts , teacher educators and teacher candidates accounts will be brought under a critical discourse analytical scrutiny to show how language procreates the objects it describes and interprets them through organized patterns of ideas and meanings. Teacher education has been selected as the broader context of this study, as I am particularly interested in how the peculiar ways of knowing and thinking about Roma children is constructed and how these affect the thinking about pedagogy, educational provision and the purpose of schooling. The research concludes that a certain discourse has become dominant in recent times; a discourse which helps to contribute to the justification of mechanisms of oppression working through the way education is planned for. It will be argued that this is instrumental in the reproduction of existing social injustices towards Roma and that reconsidering the way we use language is crucial to halt these processes and achieve educational equality and justice instead.