Entry Testing and the Overrepresentation of Romani ... - UR Research

R16PITFALLS AND BIASthe child (Ryan 1976; Glennon 1995; Ladson-Billings 1998; Linton 1998; Lynch 2001). The Soviet concept of defectologywas (and to some extent remains in the region) the “dominant medical approach to categorization, assessmentand intervention” (Lynch 2001, 17). This current model depends on a diagnosis in order to qualify for an intervention,treating a problem after it develops, instead of responding to emerging needs that could alleviate the need formore intensive interventions and services after identification (Moore 2008, 6). In the case of children from Romanicommunities, a diagnosis often serves to segregate children and provide them with an inferior education underthe law. Romani children are usually streamed into special education in the earliest years, through a regimeof school readiness testing and/or psychological and/or educational testing in which children are diagnosed andlabeled as disabled and placed in special education settings, which are usually also segregated.In the contemporary historical context, children from Romani communities in Central and South Eastern Europe,as well as children from ethnic minority communities in almost every country, are affected by “policies thatpurge” (Fine 1991, 81) based on differences that matter. Minow (1990, 51) asserts that:we typically adopt an unstated point of reference when assessing others. It is from the point of referenceof this norm that we determine who is different and who is normal…. Unstated points of reference mayexpress the experience of a majority or may express the perspective of those who have greater access tothe power used in naming and assessing others.This construction of members of Romani communities as possessing a difference that matters is in large partbased on the “conferred dominance” of whiteness (McIntosh, 1990, 35). As such, Romani people are displacedoutside of the “norm” of society. Citizens from Romani communities possess the most visible “difference” of manyethnic minorities—the color of their skin. It is this visible difference, which should not matter but does, thatlargely contributes to expectations around student performance in schools.Children who are disabled by schools, whether standard or special, have experiences in educational milieus in whichteachers have lowered expectations of them, presume them to be academically and socially deficient, whichleads to fewer teacher interactions with these pupils in the classroom; pupils are placed in the back of classroomsand are called on less, have fewer opportunities to engage in meaningful, relevant, and challenging classroomtasks, and teachers then blame them for their failure to succeed in schools (Rist, 1978; Oakes 1985; Artiles andTrent 1994; Good and Brophy 1994; Grossman 1995; Anyon 1997; Artiles 1998; Gay 2001; Solorozano and Yosso2001; Gay 2002). Artiles (1998, 32) asserts that teachers have assumptions about difference made about minoritypupils. These assumptions lead to biased expectations of minority pupils that in turn lead to biased treatmentof pupils; these biased, negative expectations of pupils generate cycles of self-fulfilling prophecies, wherebymarginalized pupils continue to be marginalized, are not provided equality of educational opportunity, and thusperform poorly (Grossman, 1995, 66; Gay, 2002, 615).