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Active citizenship and the labor market
Recognition of new forms of participation by cultural minorities:
the case of the Gypsy Community
Centre of Research in the Education of Adults (CREA)
University of Barcelona
Introduction: Participation in a changing world
The development of the Knowledge Society has brought about new inequalities that
have been provoked by more complicated access to education and knowledge (Flecha,
1994). The person who possesses the necessary knowledge to develop in this society
and a higher education, also has many more chances of accessing the regular labor
market in better conditions than the person without an education. Unequal access to
education also provokes the situation in which unqualified people occupy precarious
positions within this market and carry out informal work without any kind of coverage.
There are increasingly more people who survive on poorly paid jobs and with precarious
work conditions that lead them to be in situations of social risk (Beck, 1992). People
belonging to minority groups, like in the Gypsy Community, suffer a double form of
discrimination. On the one hand, they access education and training in small numbers
(especially university); on the other hand, the abilities and skills they possess are not
recognized.
Currently information and knowledge have become fundamental tools in every context of
social, economic and political life. Accordingly, dealing with information is a key factor
that promotes participation in social and economic spheres, most of all in the labor
sphere where abilities and resources are developed that allow people to access
positions which require better qualifications.
The reality within this dynamic is an
accentuation of social differences, between people who possess academic skills and
those who have not had the opportunity to access formal educational processes. Even
though they possess other skills they cannot access the labor market with the same
conditions.
This new informational paradigm requires new labor profiles, with the skills that are
needed in the Knowledge Society. In this context the activities aimed at the labor market
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become professionalized and technified, at the same time as the need for institutional
and organized training increases. Lifelong adult education and training has become a
basic element that provides fundamental skills for all groups to be able to participate in
decision making positions.
Through the report la educación encierra un tesoro1,
UNESCO sets out how lifelong learning serves as a link between the educational and
labor spheres, allowing new occupations to be adapted to the performance of active
citizenship.
Within this context, another factor that affects participation and governance is the
introduction of new technologies as an instrument for social development. With the
advent of informatic and telecommunication networks, new channels of democratic
participation are opening up, with which increasingly more people can access
information and form opinions about what occurs within a more global context. This
means new opportunities are offered in order to be able to move towards a more
democratic and egalitarian society. Therefore, the processing of information becomes
the main resource for being able to confront daily situations.2
But it is not the introduction of the new technologies that creates more opportunities for
democratic participation, but the way in which they are introduced. Poor use of these
creates new forms of social exclusion, especially for the people who do not have access
to the knowledge or control the informatic processes. This situation leads to social
division characterized by a polarization that has been called dual or two thirds society,
where two thirds of the population enter the regular labor market while the other third are
excluded from it (Gorz, 1986).
The people who are part of the two thirds of the population, access the regular labor
market and good conditions due to the fact that they possess academic skills that allow
them to enjoy positions of greater social promotion. Meanwhile, those who do not have
these skills suffer the risk of unemployment or accessing more precarious occupations
and increasing social fragmentation.
Taking this into account, the policies of the
European Community also recognize the importance of non-formal processes in the
training of all individuals.
Delors et al. (1996). La educación encierra un tesoro. Madrid: Santillana. Ediciones UNESCO
There are experiences online that are characterized by the promotion of these global values, like for
examples, the Telecentros, CDI, Plugged In and Native web. For more information consult:
1
2
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Work is not only a means of obtaining economic resources but it is also a way towards
personal realization, that allows one to acquire an individual identity, which also has
affects on social relationships. In addition, being a part of the labor market is also a
crucial variable that explains people’s participation in public life. People who work also
have more access to opportunities where they can participate and exercise active
citizenship.
Also, when one looks at the relationships between the variables of
“participation” and “professional situation”, another element that is highlighted is that
people who belong to cultural minority groups (in general) excluded from the formal labor
market, have greater difficulties in participating in spaces that are socially recognized as
participatory.
Therefore, “ the professional situation in the labor market” is a very
important variable to consider.
In this context, another one of the factors that affect participation and governance is the
role of social movements. There are increasingly more associations, entities and social
groups that work for greater social democratization and this means that there are new
possibilities opening up for the participation of all groups. The cultures that have been
excluded until now have the opportunity to participate in initiatives that are focused on
the defense of human rights, the environment, the fight for women’s equality, etc.
Although, not all social movements promote active citizenship. For this to take place, it
is important for everyone to feel that they are a part of the decisions that are made in
these institutions; the voice of all of the members should be heard in an egalitarian way.
In this way, all of the groups participate democratically in that which affects their
community or surroundings.
Recognition of the forms of participation of cultural minorities: the case of
the Gypsy Community.
In 1995 the European Union identified certain factors of inequality that are related to
access to training and the labor market.
Both are shown to be barriers to the
participation of ethnic minorities in the Knowledge Society. The European Commission,
tries to promote egalitarian access to education for people who belong to disadvantaged
groups through the different guidelines that it attempts to implement. At the same time,
the administrations of the member countries where ethnic minorities reside are receiving
http:// www.tele-centros.org; http://www.cdi.org.br; http://www.pluggedin.org; http://www.nativeweb.org
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economic guidance and help for carrying out measures aimed at overcoming
inequalities.
The Gypsy Community in Spain is one of the ethnic minorities that has suffered the most
profound marginalization. This is due to the fact that they have neither been able to
develop their rights as citizens, nor have they had the possibility to enjoy the resources
that the dominant, non-Gypsy population has been able to use. The Gypsy Community is
excluded from what is understood as “citizen” and excluded also from the formal labor
market (their abilities are not recognized). For this reason, they have accessed a series
of occupations with minimal social promotion, due to the social, cultural and employment
barriers that they have encountered within society.
The majority of the Gypsy Community carries out activities that are traditionally part of
their culture, mostly those that are carried out freelance.3 There are also new
employment opportunities that adjust to the profiles presented by Gypsy individuals.
Therefore, the future of this community is hopeful according to the recent statistics.
Currently, we are witnessing a new reality for the Gypsy culture. Despite the barriers to
their regular incorporation into the labor force and the temporariness of the majority of
occupations, this group is entering into positions that they have not accessed in the past,
which signifies an increase in the possibilities for this Community to access positions of
greater social promotion.
There are doors opening in sectors like construction, hotel trade, sectors in which the
Gypsy Community was previously practically unrepresented. Also, the Gypsy woman is
entering into the service sector and
youth are increasingly more concerned about
finding different occupations than the ones traditionally carried out by Gypsy men and
women.
Nevertheless, one of the most significant barriers that has impeded the Gypsy
Community from accessing the formal labor market is school absenteeism.
Abandonment of the educational system has presented the impossibility of aspiring to
occupations that require a formal education. In 1989 the European Community had
already declared their position with respect to the situation of Gypsy girls and boys. In
3
The Association of the Gypsy Secretariate has information about the professions that are most commonly
carried out by Gypsy indviduals. Generally the majority of Gypsy people carry out jobs that have a very high
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response, they established a series of actions directed towards overcoming this
situation4.
The social model that is pursued by the European Union and corroborated by the Lisboa
Summit, which took place in 2000, is that of cohesion – that all cultures and social
groups be taken into account. In Lisboa they emphasized the importance of including
the groups that are the most excluded from the labor force and society in general. It
means constructing a social context that is more democratic and egalitarian.
The European Union, based on the importance of educational processes, is working
towards providing guidance with regard to studies that will allow the improvement of
the quality of life for all people. Based on this central objective, there are some key
elements for the debate with regard to education: basic qualifications for all people;
investment in human resources; innovation in teaching and learning; valueing lifelong
learning - recognizing and certifying experience (policies APEL5); redefining the
orientation and evaluation of continuing education, and; bringing learning to the home.
During the year 2000 the European Union defined some principles about educational
policies that allowed the introduction of innovations to the traditional educational system,
improving the coordination between different administrations.
Currently, they are
potentiating actions directed towards intercultural policies; the training of teachers is
aimed at learning about the Gypsy culture; they are promoting teaching in the mother
tongue of Gypsy boys and girls (Romanó); and lastly, they are introducing research
about local realities and the assessment and evaluation of the educational policies, not
only attending to absenteeism or school drop out , but development indices. It is
important to research the real needs of the educational system in the Knowledge
Society. Hence, it is necessary for all social agents to participate, and not solely the
experts in education (Beck, 1998).
degree of temporariness. The most common sector is travelling sales, that averages between 50-80% of all
of the Gypsy individuals working.
4 European level: To stimulate the national initiatives that arise from the line of work that is available from the
Council of Education Ministries; they must organize exchanges of opinion and experiences; there must be a
following of the measures necessary in order for them to be consistent with the rest of the communitary
actions that are directly or indirectly related.
State levels: To overcome the obstacles that hinder Gypsy girls and boys from accessing schools, through
aid to school and teaching centers, and by intensifying information and research; to promote European
research that offers information and proposals for overcoming educational inequalities that Gypsy children
face.
5
Assesment of Prior Experiental Learning Social Inclusion Through APEL. The learners perspective. (20012002). Socrates Program. Grundtvig action. DG XXII. European Commission
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The measures that are being applied in Spain with respect to the inclusion of the Gypsy
culture in the educational sphere have been aimed at the elaboration of adaptive curriculi
that do not take the potential of this group into account, instead they focus on their
deficits. This has led to special educational tracks that have done nothing more than
increase the marginality of the Gypsy Community. Tracy Smith, one of the voices that
emerges from the Community (Romaní Association in Australia), argues that in order to
overcome this type of a problem, Gypsy boys and girls should be able to attend nonGypsy schools, in order to avoid racism. Another one of the proposals is that teachers
learn about the Romanó culture and are able to introduce it as part of the teaching plan6.
Communicative Methodology as a way to overcome social inequalities
Through the Communicative Methodology it is possible to transform inequalities into
possibilities. This methodology has been developed by CREA, the Center for Social and
Educational Research at the University of Barcelona. The Communicative Methodology
is based on the following premises:7
1) Universality of language competencies.
2) The person as social agent who transforms.
3) Disappearance of the premise of interpretative hierarchy on the part of the
research team.
4) Possibility of objective knowledge.
5) Breaking of methodologically relevant unevenness.
6) Take into account the attitude and the opinion of the person who is researched.
7) Communicative action.
8) Dialogue.
9) Common sense.
There are three main pillars that characterize the communicative approach: Participants
in any research that uses this methodology, are active subjects who interpret reality;
there are no divisions between subject/object, and research is grounded in egalitarian
dialogue.
State of the Art of the Gypsy Community. (2001). Workaló Project. (The creation of new occupational
patterns for cultural minorities: the Gypsy case). V Program Framework. European Commission
7
These premises are extracted, directly, from the WORKALO project. You can access it in the next URL:
http://www.neskes.net/workalo.
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The barriers that exist between researcher and researched are broken down and there is
a demonopolization of expert knowledge due to the fact that participants are the ones
who interpret reality and not the researchers. Both parties jointly analyze and interpret
reality through a relationship that is based on egalitarian dialogue. This establishes an
environment in which people interact on equal terms, where the force of the better
argument prevails.
The communicative perspective describes social realities through shared interpretations
of reality produced among people from diverse educational levels and different cultures.
Carrying out analyses on the basis of exclusionary and transformational elements of
reality contributes, on the one hand, to identifying the main barriers that exist on a social,
cultural, economic and political level as well as providing the elements that help to
overcome them. Thus, processes for social transformation are generated, that allow for
the breaking of inequalities.
The setting out of these transformational proposals is based on interdisciplinary analyses
which contribute to the elaboration of political orientations that have social utility and
allow for social transformation in all spheres.
Contributions to the debate about participation and ethnic minorities from
recent lines of research in Europe: The Workaló Project
In accordance with the dialogical turn8 that today’s society is witnessing (Flecha, Gómez,
Puigvert, 2001) there are Gypsy entities that are fighting against the social exclusion of
their group. They are initiatives that are promoting values of equality and solidarity
through active participation. Examples of these are the movement of Gypsy university
students, who are working towards perpetuating the attendance of Gypsies in the
universities in Spain, the federation of associations of Gypsy women, called Kamira, etc.
Through active citizenship, these organizations attempt to take part in decision making
processes that affect their group.
A more concrete experience is the Association of DROM KOTAR MESTIPEN, members
of the federation of Gypsy women. This association is fighting for the recognition of the
8
Currently societies are more dialogic than in the past. More people than ever can decide the type of
political representation they want in their country, through voting. At the same time, the participation in
social movements or institutions is also increasingly more frequent.
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woman in the Gypsy Community throughout their history, and the importance that their
presence acquires for the transformation of their Community. Gypsy women are working
on actions and proposals that can allow them to improve their realities. Within DROM
they also carry out important initiatives promoting schooling for the Gypsy woman, since
early school drop out, in this group, is one of the most significant barriers that the Gypsy
Commmunity faces.
Currently, CREA is carrying out the Workaló project9, an RTD addressing the Gypsy
Community. It emerges from all of these experiences and focuses its objectives on the
labor market, since access to quality positions is a way to facilitate overcoming the
marginalization of the Gypsy culture. The Workaló project aims to recognize the skills the
Gypsy population can bring to the labor market in today’s society, while identifying the
barriers that have impeded Gypsy individuals from taking part in the current labor market
in all sectors and on all levels.
The Workaló project uses a communicative approach in order to validate their
hypotheses and their objectives. In that way, the Gypsy Community is actively involved
in research design and interpretation of data. With the aim of having all the individual
and collective voices of Gypsies as the basis for the analisis, an Advisory Panel was
formed by people in the Gypsy Community, who are currently evaluating the
communicative methodology that is applied during the research process. These spaces
of dialogue are fundamental for assuring the results of the project, since the opposite
would not allow the vision to be grounded in the vision of the Gypsy Community.
The project springs from a fundamental objective:
To define innovative strategies for social and economic development aimed at
social cohesion, taking into account that ethnic minorities and the Gypsy
Community in particular have a lot to bring to the reinforcement of social
cohesion in Europe.
WORKALÓ (The creation of new occupational patterns for cultural minorities: the Gypsy case) is a RTD
Research and Development project within the program of “Improving the socio-economic knowledge”, in
program V Framework of the European Commission. This project is coordinated by CREA and the following
organizations are participants: Cooperativa de Ensino Superior de Intervençao Social (ISSSCOOP), from
Portugal; Intercultural Institute of Timisoara, West University of Timisoara, from Romania; Continuing
Education Centre, University of Surrey, from Great Britain; LAMES, Laboratoire Méditerranée de Sociologie,
from France.
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Based on this objective, we aim to know what the obstacles are that the Gypsy
Community faces in order to be able to participate in the labor market. We research new
perspectives for training and education that allow overcoming these obstacles and the
implementation of policies for this end. To attain this goal, it bases itself on two main
hypotheses:
1. Members of the Gypsy Community have developed a series of skills, due to their
historical situation of exclusion and also cultural features that are specific to their
Community, that coincide with many of the skills required in the professional world of
the Knowledge Society.
2. There are barriers or exclusionary factors that impede the equality of all people, and
the Gypsy culture continues to be excluded in the labor market. These factors must
be backed up in the legal or institutional frameworks, as well as in the attitudes
manifested by employers and employees in the workplace.
Based on this hypothesis and the central objective, two general objectives are defined
that lead to possible actions:

Moving ahead in sociological knowledge in general, and about ethnic minorities in
particular.
To provide, through descriptive analysis of the current situation and
explanatory analysis, the reason for which members of the Gypsy Community are
excluded from the labor market.

To contribute to overcoming social exclusion of the Gypsy culture from the labor
market, through political and social actions.
To also analyze how the different
policies and institutional factors of the labor market have affected in the assessment
of the skills acquired in the Gypsy Community.
Based on the hypotheses and objectives of the Workaló project, some of the
exclusionary and transformational factors that the Gypsy culture encounters in today’s
Knowledge Society have already been defined. These are results obtained from the first
phase of the field work, where there were in-depth interviews carried out with trainers,
employees and employers. This is the way to recognize the skills and profiles that are
required in today’s society.
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Some of the transformational factors that need to be highlighted here are the following:
the importance of the recognition of abilities, we all have abilities to participate and
learn, non-formal skills acquired through daily experience are as important as academic
ones, etc. Another factor is the need for interaction, that is, through egalitarian dialogue
and through solidarity everyone´s participation is promoted in the different spheres of
life.
Finally, it is important to highlight the current policy guidelines of the European Union
that are aimed at promoting and increasing democracy in all member States of the
Union, and the importance of the initiatives of ethnic minorities like Gypsies in finding
spaces for participation that are socially recognized, in order to make their voices reach
the rest of society and be taken into account. These experiences, projects and social
movements contribute to increasing participation and democracy in our society.