When School Comes to Community: Considering the Socioethnic Environment in Educational Reform for Gypsy Populations in a French City

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the dynamics of an educational reform aimed at transforming individual and collective attitudes towards school among Gypsy/Roma families living in urban spaces of advanced social marginality. In Perpignan, Gypsy/Roma people are highly marginalized, living in a deprived urban environment (violence, unemployment, poor housing conditions, female-headed households, problematic night life) and following their cultural and customary rules and values. These play a crucial role in weak school performance. In 2005, city riots pushed municipal, community, and educational stakeholders to act. Policymakers implemented an experimental national policy in Perpignan from 2007 to 2015, in which they treated education as the cornerstone of necessary change. This public policy opened schools to their social and ethnic environment, as socioenvironmental settings were utilized as a performative tool for school achievement and success.