Conflicting value systems: Gypsy females and the home‐school interface

Abstract

Drawing on data from a three-year ethnographic study of Gypsy life in England, this article explores the experience and attitudes of Gypsy women regarding the home-school interface. Specific attention is given to the following: role expectations in the different contexts; changing perceptions of role in the face of economic and social change; the contradictions and tensions arising from the process of schooling; and the identity dilemmas experienced by those young women who remain in the educational system. The findings suggest that, at the individual level, for many young Gypsy women, the different demands of home and school can lead to feelings of cultural dislocation and anxiety. At a group level, the widening of aspirations constitutes a challenge to structural patterns and traditional value systems that have underpinned both family and communal life.

Vision and Hearing Health Inequities in the Roma population: A National Cross-Sectional Study in Spain

“…Finalmente, la relación entre matrimonio adolescente y fracaso escolar ha sido puesta de manifiesto en estudios anteriores (Čvorović, 2004Levinson y Sparkes, 2006;Martín y Gamella, 2005). El matrimonio temprano no debe verse como una tradición inamovible que corresponda a una identidad étnica inalterable.…”

Fight, flight and playing white: An examination of coping strategies adopted by Gypsy Traveller Adolescents in English secondary schools

“…School engagement is thus perceived as potentially dangerous, as it could weaken cultural identity and attract the next generation of Gypsies away from their own social sphere (Clay, 1999). In a study by Levinson and Sparkes (2006), it was found that Gypsy parents could become estranged by their community if they allowed their children to stay on at secondary school, as this was seen as a manifestation of group disloyalty (p. 93). Jordan (2001) and others have even suggested that some Gypsy parents may maintain cultural boundaries by citing bullying (as an excuse) to justify their rejection of secondary education.…”

“…The requirement to operate within a dual cultural framework regularly brought them into conflict with both their families and Gypsy Traveller peers as well as with their teachers and nonTraveller peers as they attempted to balance oscillating loyalties. In their recent study of Gypsy females and the home-school interface, Levinson and Sparkes (2006) suggested that this intrinsic discord could cause psychosocial difficulties for those who stay on in the education system without having developed effective coping strategies to assuage the discomfort.…”

Accountability to research participants: unresolved dilemmas and unravelling ethics

“…With regard to my own work, such tensions have emerged on the basis of gender (Levinson & Sparkes, 2006), age-group, patterns of work and lifestyle (Levinson & Sparkes, 2004).…”