Introduction

The Roma represent the largest ethnic minority in many European countries; international institutions estimate that nowadays there are approximately 10–12 million Roma living in Europe (European Commission, 2020). However, the Roma are also one of the most vulnerable and discriminated ethnic minorities – research has shown that most Roma in Europe live in significantly sub-average living conditions, at least one third of Roma children live in conditions of absolute poverty and many young Roma are not involved in formal education (European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, 2017). The inclusion of the Roma minority is thus one of the important tasks of contemporary European society.

The situation regarding the education of Roma students is also serious in many respects. Across Europe, approximately one in ten Roma children of the age of compulsory education do not attend school – the most critical situation is in Romania, where every fifth Roma child does not attend elementary school, or in Greece, where almost a third of Roma children don’t attend elementary school (European Union Fundamental Rights Agency, 2017). Various researchers also point to the persistent segregation of Roma students in non-mainstream schools – in many Central and Eastern European countries, Roma students receive lower levels of education in classes and schools attended mainly by Roma students, separated from their non-Roma peers (Arabadjieva, 2016; Messing, 2017; Rostas & Kostka, 2014). Therefore, there is a strong need to focus on any support measures that could facilitate the inclusion of Roma students into regular mainstream schooling.

In the Czech Republic, the current number of Roma is around 250,000, which represents approximately 2.2% of the country’s total population (Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs, 2019). Within the European Union, the Czech Republic thus represents a state with a relatively significant proportion of Roma – only in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary does the Roma minority represent a higher percentage in the total population of the state. As in various other countries, in the Czech Republic Roma face many problems relating to housing and education: approximately 50% of Roma live in socially excluded areas and many students from these localities attend segregated schools (Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs, 2019). In elementary education, where Roma children account for approximately 4% of all students, a lot of Roma students struggle with language barriers, lack of motivation and insufficient support from their parents (MEYS, 2017; Šotolová, 2011).

In order to support Roma inclusion and increase the quality of education for Roma students, especially for those coming from socially disadvantaged settings, many schools and professionals focus on seeking and implementing effective educational tools and measures – and one of the most recommended is the introduction of Roma teaching assistants (Council of Europe, 2000).

The History and the Present of Roma Teaching Assistants in the Czech Republic

In the Czech Republic, Roma teaching assistants have been part of the educational system since the early 1990s (Němec et al., 2014b). In these years, shortly after the so-called Velvet Revolution and the transition from a socialist to a democratic state, the Czech Republic was inspired by the British model of ethnic assistants. Assistants who assisted teachers in educating socially disadvantaged Roma students and who were themselves Roma were first introduced unofficially on the initiative of some experienced school headteachersFootnote 1 (Němec et al., 2014a).

At the official level, the Ministry of Education established the profession of “Roma assistant” in the school year 1997/1998 and, during the following years, these pedagogical workers became a very useful source of support in schools with higher ratios of Roma students. The main responsibilities of the Roma assistant were defined as: “helping teachers during their educational activities in communication with Roma children, taking an individual approach to students and eliminating educational obstacles, helping with extra-curricular activities of the class and school, cooperating with students’ parents, and cooperating with the Roma community in the school neighbourhood” (MEYS, 1998). It is also worth noting the relatively rapid increase in the number of workers in this profession: in the Czech Republic, where high Roma unemployment was and still is a significant problem, the number of Roma assistants in schools increased from twenty in 1998 to more than two hundred in 2001 (Bartoňová, 2003). This reliably proves not only the interest of Roma in working in education but also the interest of schools in the work of Roma pedagogical staff. Professional training of Roma pedagogical assistants, provided by non-profit organisations, was set at 80 h of theoretical study of the basics of pedagogy and psychology and 40 h of practice (Šotolová, 2003).

From its inception in the 1990s, the role of the assistants, who were Roma themselves, focused on removing barriers arising from the different distribution of cultural and social capital – In the Czech Republic, sociological studies describe a strong link between the school environment and the cultural capital of the white majority; children from culturally different and socially disadvantaged minorities, especially the Roma, thus encounter a certain “clash of cultures” when entering school (Havlík, 2007). Therefore, the position of Roma assistant was and is intended as a certain bridge between the majority culture and the minority culture of Roma students.

The first significant change in the profession took place in 2001, when the Ministry of Education decided to rename the position “educator – teaching assistant”. Following this new designation, the profession continued to focus on supporting socially disadvantaged students but was no longer strictly tied to Roma ethnicity – although one of the main tasks of these workers still remained “cooperating with the Roma (or another) community in the school neighborhood” (MEYS, 2001). The profession was changed to its current form in 2004, when the position of assistants working with socially disadvantaged students was merged with the position of assistants working with students with disabilities – a unified position of teaching assistant was created in the new Education Act (Němec et al., 2014b).

At present, teaching assistants in the Czech Republic are legislatively defined by the Education Act as a “support measure” in the education of students with special educational needsFootnote 2 (Czech Republic, 2004a). Their number, with the development of inclusive education, is growing rapidly – while in 2011 there were less than six thousand teaching assistants, in 2018, schools already employed more than twenty-one thousand teaching assistants (MEYS, 2019). In recent years, another group of workers in the field are the so-called “school assistants”, whose work is covered by ESF-funded projects; even these assistants have the primary task of supporting the education of students in needFootnote 3 (Němec et al., 2014a). Unfortunately, official statistics do not record how much work assistants (whether teaching assistants or school assistants) do with socially disadvantaged Roma students, or how many of the assistants are themselves Roma; in these respects, it is therefore necessary to rely on qualitative research and practical experience of schools.

As regards qualification requirements, the Act on Pedagogical Staff distinguishes between two levels in the teaching assistant profession – at the higher level, assistants provide more qualified support to teachers and must have a secondary education with a graduation exam, at the lower level, assistants provide only auxiliary educational work and must have completed their elementary education; at both levels, however, assistants must have a pedagogical education, at least in the form of a 120-h qualification course (Czech Republic, 2004b). According to the valid legislative definition, teaching assistants provide activities such as: teacher support in the education of students with special educational needs, assistance to students in learning and in preparation for learning, auxiliary educational and organisational activities in working with students, assistance in communicating with parents/legal representatives of students and the community from which the students come, and the necessary assistance of students in relation to self-care and mobility (Czech Republic, 2004a, 2016). Some of these tasks are particularly important for assistants working with socially disadvantaged Roma students – researchers mainly emphasise their irreplaceable role in facilitating communication between the school and students’ families (Drotárová, 2006; Bartoňová & Pipeková, 2008).

Methodological Note

The following text draws on experience from various projects that took place from 2012 to 2019. Two of those were research projects: The first oneFootnote 4 took place between 2012 and 2014 and included semi-structured interviews with 40 teaching assistants from 25 elementary schools; the second oneFootnote 5 took place between 2017 and 2019 and was based on interviews with 59 teaching assistants from a large number of different schools. Another two projectsFootnote 6 were primarily applied but contained evaluation research as a part of their realization; being implemented in the years 2012 to 2014/2016 to 2018, these projects established and managed the positions of sixteen assistants in six schools situated in socially excluded areas. In all these projects, data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with teaching assistants (or school assistants), teachers, headteachers and sometimes even students with various special needs. Interviews with pedagogical staff were recorded and then converted into written form. All the data were subjected to a thematic analysis, using basic elements of grounded theory. The quotes in the following text come exclusively from Roma assistants. In order to maintain anonymity, the names of the assistants were changed.

Findings

Roma Assistants and Their Support in the Education of Socially Disadvantaged Students

According to researchFootnote 7, Roma assistants provide a number of support services in schools with a significant number of socially disadvantaged Roma students. The most important forms of their support include: (a) assisting teachers in the education of socially disadvantaged Roma students during lessons; (b) supporting teachers in understanding Roma students and their needs; (c) providing psychosocial support for Roma students; (d) tutoring Roma students; (e) organising leisure activities for socially disadvantaged Roma students; (f) supporting communication between the school and Roma students’ families.

Assisting teachers in educating socially disadvantaged Roma students during lessons is a key part of the work of Roma assistants. It significantly helps to individualise the education process, and, in many cases, it seems to be the basic factor in the success of Roma students.

Magdalena (D): “I’m in a class where there are over 20 students and each one of them is different and it is not in the teacher’s powers to manage everything. If the children are absent for a month or two or if they come from home unprepared, I think that at that moment I am very useful, and I can see the progress. I know that the teacher wouldn’t have time to go back with them to do a lesson from a month or two months before. So I say ‘Let’s go and look at it’ and I can see that although they have missed some classes, they already know some letters, they can read, well ‘read’ in inverted commas, they can’t read as fast as their peers, but they can manage a bit, and counting too.”

The presence of an assistant and the possibility of individualised support help many socially disadvantaged Roma students to become more focused, more self-confident, and therefore more successful during classes.

Laura (D): “…the teacher always says, ‘Laura, he is always so happy that you sit next to him, that you help him, he is always looking forward to you working with him, but when you leave he is totally desolate.’, but when there’s time, the teacher also sits with him because he is still very unsure of himself, he doesn’t know how to do things…”

From the perspective of many socially disadvantaged Roma students, Roma assistants represent both a formal and an informal authority, which is sometimes even more important than the teacher’s authority. Therefore, in some cases, Roma assistants provide significant support to teachers in maintaining students’ discipline.

Adam (A): “…then there are even teachers who teach well but do not get much respect from the children, so then I go there, for example, because the children do respect me…”

Especially in classes with heterogeneous collectives, which include Roma as well as non-Roma students, it is important to emphasise that Roma assistants should also work with non-Roma students and so enable the teacher him/herself to pay more attention to disadvantaged Roma students. Thus, the teacher and the Roma assistant can work with different groups of students and take into account their special educational needs as much as possible.

Lada (B): “Reading itself was very useful because we really have a big problem with reading, so I take a couple of children aside, maybe three or four, and we read separately, it pays off. Or we have learning centres, for working in those centres we divide kids into groups …”

Another important part of the Roma assistants’ work is supporting teachers in understanding Roma students and their needs. Sometimes this ‘understanding’ is meant literally – some Roma students come from families where Romani language or the so-called ‘Romani ethnolect of Czech’Footnote 8 are spoken, so they encounter numerous barriers in communication with the teacher. In some cases, Roma students also prefer communication in Romani, which the teacher does not understand. In these and many other situations, an assistant who knows the communication specifics of Roma students can promote mutual understanding between the students and the teacher.

Monika (C): “… children from the seventh and eighth grades cursed each other in Romani, they spoke rudely, but the teacher did not understand them, so she did not solve it. I told the boys to stop and I told the teacher what they were talking about. Since then, she has been paying attention to it.”

At a more general level, assistants can support teachers in understanding the overall behavior and needs of socially disadvantaged Roma students – the Roma teaching assistants often have good knowledge of the students’ family and social environment, of their cultural traditions and customs, and so they can become advisers for teachers in this area.

Lada (B): “Because the Roma assistant has that experience and knowledge, we can give our own advice to benefit of the teacher … I understand that the parents do not work and do not have financial resources, but it it’s sometimes hard to understand why it really is that way. And the teachers hear it from the assistants who have the possibility of going to those families and who know the situation.”

Roma assistants often work with students from socially excluded areas, with students living in an environment with a significantly low socio-economic level, with students affected by the lack of some of the basic necessities of life; and so the understanding of the students’ living conditions is, from the perspective of Roma assistants, considered to be a basic precondition for both their own work and the work of the teacher.

Magdalena (D): “Both the children and the teachers say, ‘She just sits there and looks out of the window.’ Well, no wonder she looks out of the window, when in [the socially excluded area] they are dealing with whether they can continue to live there or not, that they live in such a dump, sometimes they have nothing to eat and so on, so she’s looking out of the window and thinks… and I know exactly why that is, because there’s nothing nice waiting for her at home.”

During schooling, Roma assistants can also be a particularly important source of psychosocial support for socially disadvantaged Roma students. The ability of assistants to listen to their students, to pay attention to their worries and needs, helps to compensate for any lack of attention from the students’ parents and improves the psychological balance of the students. The presence of an assistant who is “theirs” can be also an important factor for Roma students in identifying themselves with the school environment.

Laura (D): “There are many Roma children in this school. So, it’s great because I know if there was a Czech teacher or assistant, the Roma children would not form such an attachment to her. That’s the way it is. When, for example, some parents had a problem, the class teacher explained it to them, but they didn’t listen. When I told them, it was different. And it’s the same with children because when I came here for the first time, they were all excited and asked me ‘Are you Roma or Czech? Where are you from?’ and so on. And when they saw that I’m in the lessons, they were delighted and I must say that they are still happy that I’m there, that I work with them there.”

Both Roma assistants and Roma students are convinced that an assistant who is him/herself Roma can better identify the needs of students who also belong to the Roma minority.

Magdalena (D): “However different I am from them, I am the same – I don’t mean that every Roma is the same, but I have an idea what the people have in their heads, what they experience and what leads them to it. I also probably understand them better and they themselves hope that a Roma will understand them better, I think.”

Especially in schools with a high number of Roma students coming from socially excluded localities, Roma assistants can also serve as role models – students whose parents are often poorly educated and long-term unemployed can see the assistant as a role model who “belongs to them” but who is at the same time educated, employed and respected by the majority. As a member of a minority, the assistant is more likely to influence the future educational and professional motivation of socially disadvantaged Roma students.

Andrea (C): “… in some way to guide these kids all over again… I first encountered here that they say: ‘I’m going to be here until I turn fifteen and then, because I have asthma, I’m going to ask for a disability pension.’ That’s the way they think, or the girls: ‘Me, in eighth grade, I’ll give birth to children.’ That’s the struggle I’ve been talking about, for a long time, a long journey, gradually, slowly, so they just do not think this way … here every change, every little thing counts, when a boy comes to me and he wants to study at a building school, and he goes to the secondary vocational school, or he’ll be a chef.”

A very important part of teaching assistants’ work is represented by tutoring socially disadvantaged Roma students. This tutoring is much needed due to the lack of educational support that many Roma students have in their families – many parents themselves do not have sufficient knowledge to be able to help their children with school preparation, so, for some socially disadvantaged Roma students, assistants are the only possible source of help in preparing for school.

Laura (D): “Tutoring is important, at least they do their homework with me and they know that they do it right. That is the advantage, that even in maths or in the Czech language they do the homework right. I know that Helena has just been here, she’s in fourth grade and she had her maths homework after a long time and her teacher was surprised that she had done it and she said she did it during the tutoring.”

The tutoring of socially disadvantaged Roma students provided by assistants usually focuses on subjects in which students have the most significant problems – in addition to mathematics, it is most often Czech and foreign languages. Proof of the importance of tutoring in the work of Roma assistants is also the fact that students are interested in this form of support and regularly attend tutoring.

Andrea (C): “… I think even if there was nothing else, so at least I managed this tutoring successfully and everyone here will tell you that this tutoring gives a certain order to the kids, they come, even wait for an hour here. Nobody would believe me that if they have a one-hour break, yeah, and they will have to wait – the big kids for example, their classes end at half past twelve and I have the smaller kids first, then I have these six, seventh graders – they wait for an hour here for the tutoring. I think it’s a success to have built this in them.”

The tutoring usually takes place in the school building, but in some cases Roma assistants also provide tutoring in students’ families, in their households. The advantage of tutoring in the family can be that the assistant can also involve the student’s parents and thus show these parents how they should carry out school preparation with their child.

Ilona (D): “…I do this with Honza because his parents are older and have no other children, just him, so they sit down with us and I tell them that they have to do this and that…”

In addition to tutoring, another important form of assistants’ support is organising leisure activities for socially disadvantaged Roma students. These activities often take place in the school environment and create opportunities for spending time meaningfully even for those disadvantaged Roma students who are not able to take part – usually due to financial barriers – in leisure activities in other institutions. In some cases, the assistants manage to organise these activities in cooperation with teachers, following the joint tutoring of students.

Jana (C): “We made an activity for children who don’t go to the club so that they can get involved as well. So, we play there, listen to fairy tales or tell stories, read fairy tales and go for walks. Then we have a club. When the teacher comes, we learn for 45 minutes, then we play for 45 minutes, and then we wait to for the parents to come.”

The involvement of assistants in the organisation of the leisure activities for socially disadvantaged Roma students is important for several reasons: it is another form of developing students’ knowledge and skills, but it is also a form of preventing undesirable ways of spending afternoons in the bleak environment of excluded localities, and finally, it is a tool that strengthens the students’ positive attitude to school. Some Roma assistants also appreciate the fact that in leisure activities and tutoring they can get to know their students better and become more sensitive to their needs.

Magdalena (D): “…I have leisure time activities during the school year and again during the holidays. For me it’s great, it definitely is – I do tutoring with the kids, I go to their homes, I know them from school and then I can have another perspective as an assistant, to see them when they are completely relaxed, under no pressure; they draw, cook, dance, sing.”

For many teachers, Roma assistants also represent a powerful instrument to support communication between the school and the Roma students’ families. Especially in socially excluded localities, parents of Roma students often distrust the institutions of the majority society and avoid contact with the school – in such cases, a Roma assistant can often represent the only possible link between the school and the students’ families.

Lada (B): “…but above all, it is work with socially disadvantaged children in this area because we actually live in the ‘Bronx’ of [name of the city], so it is my biggest job to work with the family.”

In practice, the Roma assistants communicate with the Roma parents using all possible opportunities to get in touch – e.g. via telephone contact, addressing parents in the school environment but often also by attending the households of students’ families.

Jana (C): “I am ok with being in class every day only for the first two hours, then I have time to go around the families, according to what my teachers give me. It will take me another part of the morning to walk through town and get back again…”

Some Roma assistants are very personally involved in their work, so they also devote part of their personal free time to contact with the students’ parents.

Monika (C): “… I always manage to visit the families. If it sometimes isn’t possible to reach them in the afternoon, then I do some work at home and then I visit them in the evening. I will definitely communicate with the family that day.”

Unlike teachers, Roma assistants often have the advantage when contacting the parents of socially disadvantaged students in that they know the habits of these parents well and know where to look for them.

Eva (C): “Once I couldn’t find a mother, and because I know where all these parents meet, I went to the bar in the evening. She was quite surprised and begged me “don’t embarrass me here”, and the next day she finally came to school.”

When communicating with students’ parents, the ethnicity of Roma assistants also has an incredibly significant positive effect. As mentioned in the introduction to this text, the Roma are among the most discriminated minorities, and therefore many of them do not trust the representatives of the majority society. An assistant who is Roma him/herself can gain the trust of students’ parents so much easier.

Ilona (D): “It is certainly an advantage that we understand them better when something happens, and they surely confide in us more than they otherwise would because… I’m the one who is equal to them, even though we might live differently, but I’m an equal. But if a Czech comes, it is like a supervisor that has come to look at them and that will check them. From me they accept it, I will talk to them as usual and they will take it as usual. But when a Czech comes and says, ‘You should do this and that’ it’s as if they ordered them to do it, ‘And now do this.’ And I think that some Czechs… they are not all the same… but they come and just the way they look at them, the Roma notice it immediately. Yes, I’m Roma, so I sense that look. I go there as normal and I know what they live like, even though some of them live in terrible conditions, but I talk to them normally.”

Thanks to good contacts with students’ parents, Roma assistants even have the chance to obtain – and subsequently pass on to teachers – important information that would not otherwise reach the school.

Martin (A): “Because I am a Roma myself, and we have Roma children here… I must therefore appreciate that I have very good communication with the parents, whatever the problem, so if the teachers need something, maybe just to resolve a minor issue, I will intervene spontaneously before any inconvenience occurs … If Roma parents see their children have a problem, they are a little bit reluctant to talk about it with the teacher. I seem to have a greater possibility to ask the parents about everything, so I sometimes have more insight.”

The ethnicity of Roma assistants can also be beneficial in overcoming language barriers when communicating with students’ parents – if both the Roma assistant and the student’s parent speak Romani, the assistant can translate and interpret information for teachers and other school staff.

Lada (B): “I’m lucky that they are rather positive, that most of my parents respect me as a person who can help the family, and even if they do not want to say something directly to the teacher, they tell me in Romani and I interpret it for the teacher …”

Discussion, Conclusions and Implications: ‘They Respect Me as a Person Who Can Help’

Many research studies prove that the position of Roma teaching assistant has a significant positive effect on the education of socially disadvantaged Roma students. For example, it has been shown that the presence of an assistant – in relation to Roma students – increases the likelihood of meeting the requirements of a standard educational program and decreases the risk of reducing educational content (Gabal & Čada, 2010).

It is also clear that the teaching assistants’ affiliation to an ethnic minority plays an important role. The assistant, who is Roma him/herself, understands the needs of Roma students (Miškolci et al., 2017), can adequately take these needs into account in education, and can even train other teachers in the specifics of working with Roma students (Open Society Fund Prague, 2018). Roma assistants contribute to the fact that Roma students consider the school environment to be safe (Pape, 2007) and they can also act as a work and study model for Roma students – research shows that even parents of socially disadvantaged Roma students prefer the assistant to be Roma, precisely so that s/he can set an example for their children (Kaleja, 2011). Having knowledge of Romani, the assistant can facilitate communication with Romani-speaking families (Public Defender of Rights, 2018).

Roma teaching assistants also can – through their own example – show Roma and non-Roma students an effective model of cooperation between the minority and the majority society (Pape, 2007). Due to their affiliation with an ethnic and cultural minority, assistants can also help teachers as partners in the implementation of multicultural education (Šotolová, 2003). And, by working with Roma and non-Roma students, as well as Roma and non-Roma parents, assistants contribute to mutual understanding and the removal of prejudices and barriers in society (Moree, 2019).

On the other hand, it is also necessary to be aware of certain risks, which – although not exactly described by Roma assistants in the research analyzed above – have been precisely specified by other researchers and could significantly affect assistants´ work. First, research shows that in many schools, assistants are used exclusively as support for students with special educational needs, who, however, are then often dependent on an assistant and do not have sufficient professional teacher support (Giangreco, 2010). It is therefore necessary to ensure that assistants work with all students in the class, thus helping more qualified teachers to gain opportunities for individualised work with students with special educational needs. Second, in terms of ethnicity, researchers also point to the risks associated with the emergence of segregation, both between schools and within the schools themselves – the presence of a Roma assistant can motivate parents of Roma students to place their children in the school where the assistant works, therefore, there is a risk of a higher concentration of Roma students in particular schools; within the school, higher frequency of communication between the assistant and the parents of socially disadvantaged Roma students can paradoxically lead to a reduction in the intensity of communication between the teacher and these parents (Starčević et al., 2016). Therefore, it is desirable to support the employment of Roma teaching assistants in a larger number of schools and in practice to ensure that socially disadvantaged Roma students and their parents are supported as much as possible by both Roma assistants and non-Roma teachers.

In summary, there is already much evidence of the benefits of Roma teaching assistants – they can facilitate work with socially disadvantaged Roma students, they can help with communication between school and Romani students’ families, and they can help teachers understand Romani culture and language. Their cooperation with non-Roma teachers can also be a model for relations between Roma and non-Roma students and thus support the multicultural atmosphere of schools. As Lada, Roma assistant, said – the parents of the students she works with “respect me as a person who can help”. And that is it: respect, respect between parents and educators, respect between Roma assistants and non-Roma teachers, that is what our society needs. Roma teaching assistants thus contribute not only to increasing the academic success of socially disadvantaged Roma students but also to improving relations and mutual understanding between the majority society and the Roma minority.

The Roma represent the largest ethnic minority in Europe; statistics also show that even in the twenty-first century many Roma children live in poverty and are not sufficiently involved in education. The involvement of Roma students in education is thus a very important issue. Our research projects pointed to the main responsibilities of Roma assistants including assisting teachers, tutoring Roma students, helping them to overcome language barriers, providing psychosocial support and organizing leisure activities for Roma students, supporting communication between the school and the Roma students’ families.

Building on these findings, it would be valuable in future research to further investigate the cultural context of the deployment of ethnic minority assistants, as well as the possibility of professional growth from Roma assistants to Roma teachers.