‘It’s good enough that children are accepted’: Roma migrant mothers’ views of their children’s education post-migration

The discrimination of Roma groups across Europe has been highlighted by several international organisations. For many, poverty, racism and their children’s systematic exclusion from education are ‘push’ factors when deciding to migrate. This study explores Roma mothers’ views of their children’s education post-migration and attitudes to education more broadly, by adopting an intersectional framework and examining issues of difference and belonging as experienced by Roma mothers and their children. While Roma mothers recognised the value of education for social mobility, they remained aware of the limited resources they could draw upon, in the absence of desirable economic and cultural capital, and as a result of their ethnicity, social class, gender and ‘undesirable migrant’ status. There was a perceived hopelessness in relation to the chances that Roma children have to overcome their marginalisation through schooling, pointing to the need for dedicated policy interventions when working with Roma families