ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses educational provision and access for young people in Romania, with a specific focus on policies targeting Roma youth. We discuss the historical context for Roma education policy formation, and especially in connection with the transition from socialism in the early 1990s and the accession to the European Union in the 2000s. We then turn to a discussion of two recent studies examining how national policies are enacted within rural settings. We find that educators, none of whom were of Roma background, tended to frame their understandings of Roma disadvantage and educational outcomes as a consequence of behaviors and cultural practices. School mediators, the majority of whom were of Roma ethnicity, tended to frame their understandings of Roma student outcomes as a consequence of structural disadvantage. The study suggests that “culture of poverty” perspectives held by educators constitute an important element in reproducing disadvantage and exclusion for Roma students.
