This book discusses the current educational climate and the impact of these policy measures for Roma people in eight Central and Eastern European countries. There is a severe lack of information about the Roma people in the public domain. This book seeks to raise awareness of this forgotten minority.

This book offers an in-depth exploration into the current educational climate and the impact of these policy measures for Roma people in seven Western and Southern European countries and seeks to raise awareness of this forgotten minority and to assess the policies implemented to integrate the Roma people into the education system.

Lifelong Learning and the Roma Minority in the Western Balkans examines the education situation of Roma in the Western Balkans, providing an overview of the education policies for Roma in 5 EU-candidate and potential candidate countries: Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia.

This book offers an in-depth exploration into the current educational climate and the impact of these policy measures for Roma people in seven Western and Southern European countries and seeks to raise awareness of this forgotten minority and to assess the policies implemented to integrate the Roma people into the education system.

The volume presents the results collated in the frames of the fact finding project led by the editor. The analysis includes the examination of a large number of legal documents and policy statements issued by national authorities and the international community on the matter. A critical overview is also made about the various Roma-specific political campaigns on national and European scale. The second half of the book contains interviews with activists that assumed a leading role in school desegregation. These testimony pieces have been critically reviewed by educational and policy analysts from the concerned countries.

This open access volume provides an understanding of the different aspects of success, school continuity and social mobility among European Roma, including the motives justifying the high rates of school dropout and failure among this group. It offers a critical and reflexive perspective about social reality from a multidisciplinary and transversal point of view, sharing knowledge and practices in different countries about the articulations between Roma families, individuals, school and public policies. Over time, there has been an increase in the educational attainment of European citizens, but there are still persistent inequalities between Roma and non-Roma, including gender inequalities, which greatly affect Roma women. The volume explores the issue of Roma education and includes chapters from Western European, South and Central and Eastern European researchers using different theoretical and methodological perspectives. The intersection of this diversity and plurality of standpoints makes possible to obtain a comprehensive view on the education and schooling of European Roma.

For the European Union, lifelong learning has become a means of achieving both competitiveness and social cohesion in an increasingly knowledge-based and globalised economy. Though the concept of lifelong learning is not new, it now coincides with a period of rapid EU expansion. The research project the book is based on examines how lifelong learning is understood and operationalised, especially in countries within the area of the EU's expansion. Europe, its policy-makers and peoples, need to know whether lifelong learning can contribute to the construction of a European identity - and if so, how. The research points to the importance of diverse national contexts, which suggests a single model of lifelong learning across the EU is unlikely to be achieved. While the EU may encourage a common policy, and this may generate significant national policy developments, these will be strongly influenced by national context: institutional, political, social, ideological. Many countries will continue - consciously or unconsciously - to "pick and choose" between different EU priorities.