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Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March Etgace 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 Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March Etgace 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 Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March Etgace 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 Etgace Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March 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 Etgace Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March 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 Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March Etgace 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. 6 Etgace Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March 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. Etgace Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March 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. 9 Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March Etgace 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. Etgace Brussels Conference: 15th and 16th of March 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.