Schooling And Travelling Communities

Education in Indigenous, Nomadic and Travelling Communities provides a thorough examination of up-to-date case studies of educational provision to travelling communities and indigenous people in their homelands or in host countries. Education is usually under-utilised during phases of transition. In many instances, indigenous groups and travelling people, including nomads, do not have educational opportunities equal to that of their settled counterpart-citizens. For such groups, this results in early school leaving, high school drop-out rates, low school attendance and low success rates. Indeed, indigenous, traveling and nomadic groups often begin their working life at an early age and often experience difficulties penetrating the formal employment arena. In this volume international researchers analyse the internal and external factors affecting educational provision to travelling, nomadic and indigenous groups. A comparative examination of the issues is enabled through the global case studies including the Roma people in Europe; indigenous groups in Malaysia; the Gypsies of England; the Travellers of Ireland; the Sami nomadic people of Scandinavia and Russia as well as the Amazonian Indians of Latin America.

This book calls for a re-thinking of educational provision for Gypsy / Traveller communities. Despite having been recognised by the government and educational providers for over fifty years, underachievement of children from Gypsy / Traveller communities persists. Rather than focusing specifically on access, attendance and attainment, the author provides a structural analysis of the cultural tensions that often exist between Nomadic communities and current school provision based on the interests and values of Sedentarism. The author uses spatial theory as a base upon which to build knowledge and understanding of the educational exclusion of children from Gypsy / Traveller communities, highlighting the social role that space plays within schools. This innovative book will be of interest and value for students and scholars interested in not only education and Gypsy / Traveller communities, but education for minority communities more widely.

First published in 1997, this study is an attempt to read and critique answers to that question, answers offered in policy and provision, and answers to those answers, in talk and texts, and in classroom performances, an often fraught ‘conversation’ which goes on in spirals.

In this new addition to our 'Travellers' Tales' series, Sonny devotes his weekend to helping his neighbours and fellow Travellers with a variety of tasks. He uses many skills, from calculating the amount of fuel needed for a journey, to restoring a caravan. In fact, the only thing he doesn't do over the weekend is his homework - his workbook is missing! What will his teacher say? This new picture book by Richard O'Neill champions the idea that many skills learned at home are as important as those learned at school.

This text is for teachers who teach or plan to teach traveller children. It sets out what teachers, traveller advisors and other professionals need to know about traveller culture, values, lifestyle, economic experience and learning, and relates this information to the educational issues arising from travellers' learning requirements. The authors use their experience and research to deepen teachers' understanding of the traveller child as a new or late learner rather than as a failed learner. They explain a variety of approaches and perspectives on travellers and schools and help teachers to reconstruct the curriculum appropriately. The relevant legislation is clarified and analysed, and there is guidance on providing equal educational opportunity to traveller children in light of the discrimination and hostility they face. Case studies are provided.

This translation of the proceedings of the international conference organised by the Centre for Gypsy Research & held in Carcassonne in 1989 provides a vivid picture of action research into the education of Gypsy & Traveller children in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain & the UK.

Traveller, Nomadic and Migrant Education presents international accounts of approaches to educating mobile communities such as circus and fairground people, herders, hunters, Roma and Travellers. The chapters focus on three key dimensions of educational change: the client group moving from school to school; those schools having their demographics changed and seeking to change the mobile learners; and these learners contributing to fundamental change to the nature of schooling. The book brings together decades of research into the challenges and opportunities presented by mobile learners interacting with educational systems predicated on fixed residence. It identifies several obstacles to those learners receiving an equitable education, including negative stereotypes and centuries-old prejudice. Yet the book also explores a number of educational innovations that bring mobility and schooling together, ranging from specialised literacy programs and distance and online education to mobile schools and specially trained teachers. These innovations allow us to think differently about how education can and should be, for mobile and non-mobile learners alike.

Over the past decade, interest in Gypsies, Roma and Travellers (GRT) has risen up the political and media agendas, but they remain relatively unknown. This topical book is the first to chart the history and contemporary developments in GRT community activism, and the community and voluntary organisations and coalitions which support it. Underpinned by radical community development and equality theories, it describes the communities' struggle for rights against a backdrop of intense intersectional discrimination across Europe, and critiques the ambivalent role of community development in fostering these campaigns. Much of it co-written by community activists, it is a vehicle for otherwise marginalised voices, and an essential resource and inspiration for practitioners, lecturers, researchers and members of GRT communities.