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Discrimination and the Roma Community 2014
3
Cases of discrimination in education
1.
Madrid.
Education.
Direct discrimination.
At a school where the Foundation is involved with the Promociona
Educational Programme, some Roma families complained of prejudicial treatment; they feel that their children
receive an excessive number of suspensions and disciplinary bulletins.
After looking into the situation through FSG employees in Madrid who work directly at the school, we request-
ed a meeting with the school administration to report on these incidents taking place in classrooms with Roma
students.
After contacting the school administration on several occasions to discuss this situation, we were finally able to
propose and develop awareness-raising workshops with support from teachers and students at the school to
keep incidents such as these from reoccurring.
2.
Madrid.
Education.
Direct discrimination.
The FSG’s alert service informed us of an email from a non-Roma
father who complained that the students at the school his son attends put on a play for the entire student body
and their families in which the characters were Gypsies; in other words, giving a stereotyped image of the Roma
community which is not representative. The FSG’s Equality Department got in touch with the school to discuss
the case and to explain that extracurricular activities such as these only serve to consolidate and disseminate
stereotypes towards the Roma community perpetuating a negative image towards this group as a whole.
3.
Madrid.
Education.
Direct discrimination.
We received a phone call from the director of a school in Alcalá
de Henares. She told us that several parents of Roma children enrolled at the school had complained about
the racist way in which one of the teachers was treating their children. The director told us that she had
the same suspicions but had no evidence and needed to find out more and prove that what the parents
were saying was true.
We offered the parents the toll-free number and email address for our assistance service for victims of discrim-
ination and suggested that they get in touch with us and give us their testimony in person in order to verify the
information later with the teacher and determine the best strategy to remedy the situation.
We received a call from the father who reported that the parents of the students concerned had requested
a meeting with that teacher. He promised to inform us of the outcome of that meeting and asked us not to
intervene until we knew the results of the meeting.
After the meeting, the parents told us that the teachers were committed to staying more on top of these in-
cidents in the classroom and to inform the school administration, thus showing a willingness to solve problems.
4.
Caceres.
Education.
Direct discrimination.
The FSG in Caceres accompanied two Roma girls who were mak-
ing a late school enrolment application. The regional Department of Education in Caceres furnished them a list of
schools and they saw that there were still openings available for students applying late.
The students went to the school they had chosen from among the options proposed by the Department of
Education based on the number of openings still available. When they tried to enrol at that school they were told
that “classrooms are overcrowded”. This response prompted us to accompany the girls to the Department of
Education where we heard the secretary speaking on the phone and stating that there was no such overcrowd-
ing (she had the figures showing the number of students enrolled in each school in the province), thus proving
that these students were rejected on the basis of ethnic prejudice..