Jana Obrovská

We treat them all the same, but…. Disappearing ethnic homogeneity in Czech classrooms and teachers' responses

This article argues that the Czech education system is structured to operate in an ethnically homogeneous society. Although the Czech Republic is becoming increasingly heterogeneous, teachers deploy discursive practices of ‛sameness despite difference’ that obscure such growing diversity. This article is grounded in the historical context of migration to and from the Czech Republic and based on ethnographic research in several ethnically-mixed classrooms. We analyze the ways in which teachers talk about their pupils. We show that in the case of migrant children, teachers tend not to see their differences and hence, their potentially structural disadvantages. On the other hand, the Roma ethnicity is perceived as insurmountable. Teachers mobilize lists of cultural and even genetic differences to legitimize their different treatment of Roma pupils. Furthermore, we analyze policy documents regarding the education of non-Czech pupils and their reception by teachers. All these strategies result in the continuing perception of Czech classrooms as ethnically homogeneous while disregarding any social inequalities.

Ethnicity in Classtime Rituals

This chapter concentrates on rituals of instruction that display the respect or contempt of teachers toward the students, used to affirm the desirable identity of a “good” student and confront those who do not achieve it. Obrovska focuses on instructional rituals permeated by the ethos of work that are directed at failing Roma boys in the context of classroom 8.A and deduces that even if unintentionally, these rituals deepen the distance of Roma boys from school and provoke rituals of resistance. Based on the analysis of teachers’ talk, the chapter depicts the ethnicization of maturity of Roma students. Roma students are ostensibly premature not because they are older (as an effect of postponed and interrupted school enrollment), but because of the “other” Roma way of maturing.

The Methodological Aspects of Educational Ethnography in Ethnically Diverse Classrooms

In Chap. 3, Obrovska elaborates the research methodology, the techniques of data collection, and the data sources analyzed throughout the book. She discusses the numerous methodological advantages ethnography represents in the research of ethnically diverse classrooms. Ethnography offers a variety of different research methods (including observation, and formal as well as informal interviews), including those having a distinctive participatory appeal, such as focus groups and socio-games. These methods enable the researcher to capture the linguistic and cognitive aspects of ethnicity as well as its bodily, aesthetic, and emotional dimensions. The author also discusses her positionality in relation to the teachers and the students and uncovers the ethically sensitive situations and issues that were part of her daily research experience.

Frajeři, rapeři a propadlíci: etnografie etnicity a etnizace v desegregované školní třídě

This article focuses on the dynamics of ethnicity in the desegregated classroom. The author examines the role of ethnicity in peer culture and fi nds that it is usually mediated and intersects with other categories (gender, age) and social identities of students (e.g. the friend identity). She also seeks to determine in what contexts and what directions these intersections occur and what kind of integrative or exclusionary effects ethnicity has in the classroom. She argues that ethnicity primarily becomes visible during ritualised symbolic performances in which the signifi cance of different identities is accentuated. Against the backdrop of an ethnographic description of the role of ethnicity in the classroom she analyses the position in the classroom of Roma students, whose distinctiveness can serve as a source of exclusion or a means for selfassertion. At the intersection of the low status that Roma students are given in their role as students and the high status in their role as friends, ethnicity and ethnicisations in the classroom are to be contradictory in their effects.This article focuses on the dynamics of ethnicity in the desegregated classroom. The author examines the role of ethnicity in peer culture and finds that it is usually mediated and intersects with other categories (gender, age) and social identities of students (e.g. the friend identity). She also seeks to determine in what contexts and what directions these intersections occur and what kind of integrative or exclusionary effects ethnicity has in the classroom. She argues that ethnicity primarily becomes visible during ritualised symbolic performances in which the significance of different identities is accentuated. Against the backdrop of an ethnographic description of the role of ethnicity in the classroom she analyses the position in the classroom of Roma students, whose distinctiveness can serve as a source of exclusion or a means for selfassertion. At the intersection of the low status that Roma students are given in their role as students and the high status in their role as friends, ethnicity and ethnicisations in the classroom are to be contradictory in their effects.

Žádná různost není, všichni jsme tu stejní. Děti migrantů,jejich spolužáci a vyučující na českých základních školách

V tomto clanku si vsimame toho, jak se ceský vzdělavaci system vypořadava s rostouci etnickou různorodosti. Zaměřujeme se přitom jak na perspektivu pedagogů, kteři uci ve třidach navstěvovaných dětmi migranty z Ukrajiny, Ruska, Vietnamu, tak na perspektivu samotných děti migrantů a jejich spolužaků. Předkladame výsledky analýzy dat ziskaných v průběhu etnografickeho výzkumu na vybraných skolach po cele Ceske republice. Vedle individualnich rozhovorů s pedagogy jsou to zejmena skupinove rozhovory s dětmi, v nichž identifikujeme diskurzivni strategie a repertoary charakteristicke zneviditelňovanim etnicity a udržovanim představy etnicky homogenniho celku. Cilem tohoto clanku je analýza procesů zneviditelňovani etnicity, ktere je v promluvach pedagogů spojeno s humanistickým ramovanim osobnosti žaka a u samotných žaků migrantů se projevuji performovanim normalnosti a bezproblemovosti, ktera ovsem musi být stvrzena jejich ceskými spolužaky. Etnickou různorodost v ceských skolach chapeme jako prostoupenou diskurzem stejnosti navzdory různosti.