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For over 25 years, Les Voyageurs School has been supporting the socio-academic integration of Roma ("Gypsy") and itinerant children in a parking lot in Dijon. In other respects, Les Voyageurs is a typical French public school. The school’s educational project is part of an effort to assure that Roma children may develop to their full potential. As such, it provides a common ground wherein their culture of origin and classroom culture are able to co-exist.
The children, regardless of their age and whether or not they are itinerant, can attend classes anywhere from one day to several consecutive months a year. Such variations in the rate of classroom attendance and the disparities in the children’s levels of education, but also their personal affinity with classroom learning and teachers, have led the school’s team of educators to gradually introduce learning strategies that are appropriate to Roma families’ culture.
Ensuring the children’s welcome, working in partnership with their families and adapting specifically targeted pedagogical methodologies are all factors that favour the enrolment and academic success of children who attend Les Voyageurs School. The specialised educational activities, which constitute a more open approach to learning (including content and methods), focus on respect and take into consideration the children’s culture of origin and actual level of education in order to strengthen the place of Roma culture and give families a better understanding of the value of formal schooling. Rather than being dismissed as "itinerant persons", a highly-stigmatised social category that implies a need for social and cultural readaptation, the children who attend this school are fully recognised as Roma people : holders of a rich culture and history. While their traditions and lifestyle are in some ways distinct from the majority, they have significant expectations with regard to education.
Because of the efforts of teachers and the specialised approaches they have developed, the school becomes an educational laboratory that serves the particular needs of Roma children. The school recognises the right of children to their cultural differences while retaining their rights as full citizens. These efforts are all the more admirable when one considers the current ideological and political context in France, which, on the pretext of promoting equality, often compromises the individual’s right to cultural difference. Les Voyageurs School has demonstrated that it is resolutely attuned to the Roma people’s particular needs. Conversely, will the school be able to retain the attention of the Ministry of Education and the community? Can we realistically hope to build a truly intercultural society in which human rights will prevail, or should we fear cultural assimilation, long synonymous with failure and a loss of identity ? Time will tell.
For more information : Régis Alviset, Headmaster, Les Voyageurs, à Dijon. E-Mail : ec-voyageurs-21@ac-dijon.fr ; Virginie Repaire, studying at the PhD level in sociology, Université René Descartes, Paris-V, la Sorbonne. E-Mail : virginie.repaire@paris5.sorbonne.fr
Image :Photo tirée du blog « demarchcitoyenne »
http://demarchcitoyenne.skyrock.com/293471457-Tziganes-Manouches-Roms.html
