ABSTRACT
This chapter provides literature on Travellers, specifically regarding what it has to say about childhood and schooling in Traveller society, and in particular about the major difficulties relating to Travellers’ attendance and attainment in second-level schools. It deals with a short discussion on schooling and childhood in traditional societies, and on special schools. The chapter focuses on the integration/segregation debate, and on arguments regarding the exclusionary nature of separate provision. Special needs provision plays a specific role and the teachers who work in it develop specific skills, commitment and styles of discourse. C. Reiss argues in favour of special provision, on the grounds that the mainstream school system has little understanding of Travellers, a minority group with their own family-based education system, a group whose distinctive identity owes little to the value system of the sedentary. The chapter examines relations between management of childhood in traditional society, and schools’ priorities and operations.
