‘Fast and violent integration’: school desegregation in a Hungarian town

Abstract

Joint European and national initiatives aiming at Roma inclusion in Central-Eastern European (CEE) education systems have repeatedly been assessed by policymakers, lobby groups and researchers as failing their original targets. My article centres on the in-depth analysis of the evolution of the education policy discourse and practice in a Hungarian municipality; and by doing so, it aims to contribute to this debate in two ways. Firstly, it argues that the literature often restricts itself to a national, and occasionally to a regional scope and hence the ways in which policy transforms as it travels back and forth between transnational, national and local scales become obscured. Secondly, it argues that policy evaluations often adopt a narrow perspective, bound to particular scalar positions. Instead, a more sensitive approach to the process of policy re-contextualization can offer a better understanding of complex and diverse policy effects. The analysis shows that national and supranational pressures significantly transformed the patterns of access to schooling in the studied municipality, however, particular sections of the target-group has been affected differently.

Keywords:

• Central-Eastern Europe (CEE)
• desegregation
• education policy
• Roma
• urban governance

Notes

1. While I am aware of the controversies around the use of the term ‘Roma’ being a majority construction falsely assuming homogeneous group identity, I decided to use this term throughout the article because it reflects the vocabulary of the Hungarian policy discourse. See discussions about the methodological challenges in Messing (2014) and about the political implications in McGarry (2014) as well as the references in the paragraphs about EU policies.

2. The first phase of the research (2008–2010) was part of an EU-funded research and development project Assessment and Evaluation of Public Education at the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The project was continued with the support of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (2011–2013) at Corvinus University Budapest. The team was led by Dr Lajos Bódis, the research associates were Dr Daniel Horn, Eszter Neumann and Márton Oblath. Four research areas were identified which – according to our hypothesis – had been the most relevant policy areas at the time: (1) assessment and evaluation; (2) institutional development and classroom innovation; (3) the distribution of socially disadvantaged students; and (4) organizing special education and rehabilitation services. The present article draws on the third orientation.

3. The two key categories of targeting were social disadvantage (low socio-economic status ) defined by the families’ economic status and socio-cultural disadvantage (low socio-cultural status ) which on top of the economic criteria, relied on indicators of low cultural capital.

4. For the discussion of the contextualization of supra-national travelling policies in Hungarian educational policymaking see: Berényi and Neumann 2009.

5. This power structure fundamentally transformed when the public school system was nationalized and centralized in January 2013. Since then, schools have been operated by an institution maintainer centre whose micro-regional regulatory entities control considerably greater educational systems than former local authorities. The regulatory control of local authorities remained over kindergartens and the operation of public education institutions (i.e. utility payment and maintenance works).

6. In the discussion, I chose to focus on Pigeon school since the policy debates almost entirely concentrated on this school. Finch was closed down in 2005 and its catchment area was directed to an inner-town school. The school’s strategy was to render invisible Roma students in the eyes of the public and hence maintain the school’s reputation and status. In our interview with the head of the town’s education department in 2013, he named this school as the local success story of integration.

7. Between 2005 and 2009, attendance numbers dropped from 275 to186.

8. Although the town applied for the tender in 2008, they were only notified about the success in 2010. By then, the national policy pressure released and eventually the tender was turned down in June 2011, arguing that it set such baseline criteria for town-wide desegregation which, in their view, should have been the goal of the tender.

9. According to the 2008 modification of the education act, from 2009/2010, the proportion of low SCS students should be calculated compared to the municipality’s average and a maximum of 15 percentage points of deviation was acceptable for all catchment areas. Another modification ruled that from 2010 on, public schools were prohibited to enrol students to first grade classes if their catchment area ratio deviates with more than 15 % or the proportion of low SCS students is above 50% .

10. The peak was 2009 when 34 first graders left and only 18 stayed in Pigeon.

11. The messages of frontline practitioners were controversial: while in 2008, the Roma Minority Self-Government tried to persuade parents to choose schools according to the redrawn catchment areas, a year later the same task was given to the child care services. Interviewees mention that by then, rumours (in line with the new legislation) were that Pigeon would close down. Later, when Pigeon was given to church maintenance, the Roma government started to convince parents to choose Pigeon again.

12. The town’s three settlements were built in the 1980s as part of a nationwide social housing project (known as a ‘national model Gypsy settlement’ BT4–2009). In 2008, the AP proposed a diversified action plan: (1) the renovation of social housing blocks and the building of a Roma community centre; and (2) the demolishment of the most devastated 24 blocks in Pigeon street until 2016, the relocation of families classified as ‘integratable’ by the Roma Minority Self Government to another social housing area, and the partial rehabilitation of another 24 blocks. Those classified as ‘non-integratable’ were promised improvements on their housing conditions. The demolishment of the first social housing estates was planned to start at 2010, and two families were moved. However, by late 2010, a new project unfolded, and the plan to demolish Pigeon street gradually faded away from the official documents. Instead, in consortium with a new national development agency, the town proposed plans for a complex area-focused pilot project which argued for ‘at-site disadvantage-compensation, catch-up and socialization services’ and planned improvements on the social housing estates involving actively Roma tenants in a workfare scheme. The resources allocated for the demolishment of 24 apartments were erased from Birdown’s 2010 budget and the relocation of Roma tenants stopped. However, many tenants have moved out since 2010 on their own resources (Revision of the AP 29/03/2012).

13. The 2012 status quo was projected back to each cohort’s enrolment years, thus for example in the case of the 2005 cohort, I refer to the year 8 classes of the 2012–2013 school year.

14. It is to be noted that while my estimates account for differences between year group cohorts, municipal statistics report for year by year whole school data, thus only the trends and not the actual data are comparable.