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.

Economic arrangements of Romanies are complexly related to their social position. The authors of this volume explore these complexities, including how economic exchanges forge key social relationships of gender and ethnicity, how economic opportunities are constructed and seized, and how economic success and failure are transformed into attributes of social persons. They explore how, despite — or perhaps because of — their unstable and ambiguous position within the market economy, shared today with a growing number of people facing precarity and informalisation, Roma and Gypsy communities continuously re-create more or less viable economic strategies. The ethnographically based chapters share accounts of socially and economically vulnerable populations that face their situation with self-determination and creativity.

"Roma ethnic minority, also called the Romani people and sometimes as gypsies (usually in derogatory way), have one of the most dramatic histories in Europe and worldwide. The Indian origin of Roma as advocated by linguists since the 18th century, based on similarities between the Romany language (referred also as Romanes or Romani) and the Sanskrit (Achim, 2004), is now widely accepted. Although the precise region of the Indian sub-continent which Roma originated and migrated from to Europe remains elusive, genetic linguistic, historical and anthropological findings suggest that their migration started from Central India, to the Northern India, then transiting Persia and Armenia and travelled towards the Byzantine Empire and Asia Minor, and finally to Greece (Kenrick, 2007). The precise time when the journey started is also uncertain. Historical records indicate that Roma first came to work in Persia sometime between 224-241, and were either brought or deported to the Arab Empire at the start of 661, reach Constantinople in 1050, and then were in Greece in 1290. They then continued to Eastern Europe and Balkans (arriving in Serbia in 1348, Croatia in 1362, Bulgaria in 1378, Romania in 1385), followed by Central and Western Europe (arriving in Germany in 1407, France and Switzerland in 1418, Belgium in 1419, Holland in 1420, Italy in 1422, Spain in 1425, Hungary in 1489, and England in 1513; see Kenrick, 2007, for a comprehensive chronology of Roma history)"--

We find Roma settlements on the outskirts of villages, separated from the majority population by roads, railways or other barriers, disconnected from water pipelines and sewage treatment. Why are some people (or groups) better off than others when it comes to the distribution of environmental benefits? In order to understand the present situation and identify ways to address the impacts of these inequalities we must understand the past and mechanisms related to the differentiated treatment. The situation and discrimination of the Roma ethnic minority in Slovakia is examined from the perspective of environmental conditions and injustice. There is no simple answer as to why there is environmental injustice. Environmental conditions in Roma settlements are just one of the indicators of failures of policies addressing the problem of poverty and social exclusion in marginalized groups, structural discrimination, and internal Roma problems. Environmental injustice is not an outcome of the "historical determination" of the Roma population to live in environmentally problematic places.

This report brings together the available evidence from primary and secondary sources, including household surveys and results of recent qualitative studies, to develop a picture of the development challenges facing Roma populations in Central and Eastern Europe. While living standards have declined for all population groups during the transition to a market economy, there are growing indications that conditions have deteriorated more severely for Roma than for others, and that Roma are poorly positioned to take advantage of emerging economic opportunities. This report focuses on five countries in Central and Eastern Europe: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic. The first chapter of the report provides the historical context and an overview of the methodological issues and main data sources; chapter two presents the available evidence on welfare status and living conditions, examining poverty, housing education, employment and health; chapter three considers issues relating to access to social services; and the final chapter reviews the opportunities for Roma participation in the design and implementation of community development policies and programmes, and outlines policy implications.

Following the enlargement of the European Union in May 2004, Roma (or gypsies) are now the largest minority group in Europe. They are also one of the poorest and most vulnerable groups, living mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, suffering poverty levels as high as ten times that found within majority populations. The lack of information about the living conditions and needs of Roma people compound these stark gaps in human development outcomes. This publication, prepared for a conference held in Budapest, Hungary in June 2003, brings together original sociological research, evaluations of programme initiatives, and the first comparative cross-country household survey on ethnicity and poverty. It finds that Roma poverty is multi-faceted and can only be addressed by a inclusive policy approach which respects their diversity.