Renegotiating relations among teacher, community, and students : a case study of teaching Roma students in a Second Chance Program

Prejudice and systematic discrimination have often been mentioned as major causes for the chronic underachievement of Roma students. In this paper we present a case study of a Romanian teacher involved in Second Chance, an educational program implemented in Romania in 2004 for the benefit of disadvantaged groups such as the Roma population. Since 2006, this teacher annually recruited disadvantaged students, the majority of them Roma, and taught them reading, writing, and arithmetic. She showed great understanding for Roma traditions and helped her students eliminate some social and cultural barriers. This case study emphasizes that a teacher’s empathy, involvement, and support are essential to the success of the program, and suggests some curricular, extracurricular, and administrative solutions for elementary education. Although these findings cannot be easily scaled up, this approach will provide guidance in the development of inclusive and multicultural education in postcommunist countries where minorities’ rights are fairly new concepts.