ACTA SZEKSZARDIENSIUM - Pécsi Tudományegyetem Illyés Gyula ...

HOW DO CULTURES COMMUNICATE THEIR VALUES ?
– SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON CULTURE AND THEIR INTERPETATIONS OF CULTURAL VALUES
and eventually led to a decline in the standard of education at the school. In a form of
‘spontaneous segregation’, the increased percentage of Roma students at the school led to
a mistaken perception that the village school was exclusively Roma. Coupled with the
increasingly negative reputation of the school, these generalisations would contribute
to the isolation of the school within the community, and fewer non-Roma students felt
encouraged to attend.
The aim of the qualitative research done in the village was to know what defines the
negative relationships between Roma parents and school, what factors affect them and
how parents and teachers account for them. Another important issue was to see to what
extent these factors are related to perceived cultural differences. Last but not least, how this
relationship is manifested in the communication between Roma families and teachers.
The participants for the interviews were selected from the parents of the children
studying at the school. In many instances the families had children of different ages and
could provide some information about the kindergarten, as well as the primary school
itself. The group of participants was partly “purposively” selected (Cohen et al., 2000).
The selection criteria was based on the background knowledge of how Roma themselves
differentiate between each other, and which relied on their origins and socio-economic
status. This categorisation is manifest in different neighbourhoods of the participants.
Most teachers interviewed have been teaching at the school for more than 25 years. In
the followings, some key elements of the findings concerning values will be outlined,
focusing only on family values and belief in the value of education.
Parental involvement- different interpretations of “caring”
Based on the interviews with teachers, the issue of parental involvement was identified as one
source of negative relationships. This concept appears with intensity and frequency in teachers’
interpretations of problems concerning the majority of Roma families, with an emphasis
placed on the word “caring”. Analysing the interviews has shown that teachers and parents
interpret the meaning of “caring” in different ways.
For teachers caring means that parents should try to meet the expectations and
requirements of the school. Teachers expect children to be clean, disciplined, and
bring all the books and other equipment with them when coming to school. Caring
for teachers also means to show interest in the child’s education. The following quotes
show how teachers construe the meaning of caring from the school’s perspective.
Extract 1.
T4: They [Roma children] are undisciplined in the sense that they do not keep
to the rules- the school regulations [házirend]- they are late, it’s because they do not
take these things seriously. [Being late] ten minutes or 15 minutes doesn’t matter, so
this kind of sloppiness is still typical. And yes, when we tell the parents that these ten
minutes will add up to a lesson skip, and that this absence must be justified… well
these are things parents don’t take seriously at all. But then I can’t say that there are
notorious truants, like there used to be.
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