Migration, Integration and Identity Changes of the Roma Children Schooled in France

This research focuses on the identity changes the immigrant Roma children who are schooled in France go through. We consider the way the social and cultural environment shifts and the passage from the family to the school sphere influence and change registers and identity frontiers for children, as well as the consequences within their family and society in general. When we envision Roma immigration, we are speaking about an atypical migration, that of the extended family and as such, a collective migration. This collective lifestyle that concentrates on the extended family has specific collective identity traits and the traditional transmission of norms, values and know-how is perpetuated from one generation to the other inside the confines of the ethnic group. Under the influence of exclusion and marginalization, falling back onto the extended family and ethnic group guarantee a type of security when confronted with the outer world. This rejection of exterior influencers strengthens group identity through long-term group socialization. Identity and cultural boundaries are blurred and directed toward a sole goal: the collective well-being. School enrolment, generally delayed for the Roma children, represents a brutal shift in their social and cultural environment. Children have to adapt and assimilate new norms and values that the school upholds and teaches. In the case of France, where the Roma are perceived as a class of unwanted immigrants and are systematically driven back to their country of origin, their children’s education is problematic. Their academic instability is linked to an instability in their social and cultural adaptation process and their hardships pertaining to identity dynamics. In these particular conditions, the question that arises is how does education influence the Roma children’s collective identity? A longitudinal ethnographic approach seemed to be the most adequate to conduct this research in combination with a mixed methodological approach. First, preliminary data was obtained via semi-directive interviews with teachers who teach Roma children. Then, participant observation in the academic and family environment was used to examine the Roma children’s identity changes. Further on, quantitative data was obtained through questionnaires conducted with the parents of 80 children enrolled in 6 schools located in the Parisian suburbs. Results show the Roma children’s difficulties to adapt to the school environment and the hardships of their identity transition from a collective to the academically influenced one. At the same time, when their habitat and academic trajectory is stable, a strong identity shift sets in as well as identity conflicts appear. In this case, children no longer follow the rules of the group and respect their generally uneducated parents’ authority less. The brutal and uncontrolled changes of identity registers engender an identity degradation that can lead to a loss of cultural and social heritage.