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MMCP Database of Research Papers
http://www.osi.hu/lgi/ethnic/relations
SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM
By Anikó Kaposvári
***********
Abstract
***********
The intention of joining the EU mean new challenges for the Czech
Republic and Hungary.
The school is one of the places where social inequalities are
reproduced. In case the education system of these two countries do not
respond to the challenge of inequality, a small well prepared elite
might rise, finding it's way within the new-European circumstances,
while the majority will be left out of the European norms.
The question is, what efforts, initiatives these schools can make in
order to reduce social and ethnic inequality.
The aim of the research is to examine the initiatives taken by the
schools aiming to reduce social exclusion. The research does not
primarily deal with the distinction between the different types of
schools and social groups; the data speak for themselves. Nor does it
examine the mechanisms of selection within school, a problem which has
been approached by various sociological researches in the past,
investigating the reasons of inequalities of chances in schools. The
present research investigates what possible courses of action can be
taken by schools with disadvantaged students, focusing on how and
under what conditions the schools can contribute to solve this
problem, and elementary school initiatives already taken in order to
improve the chances of disadvantaged children. The research pays
special attention to the situation of the Roma. The effectiveness of
the various initiatives, of course, can only be assessed in the
future. The present research provides: the definition of the problem,
ideas to be adopted by other schools and further possible courses of
action to be taken that might be relevant for other schools in the
region facing similar problems.
-------------------
The Social - Psychological Roots of the Ethnic Problems in Crimea
By Carina Korostelina
Introduction
***************
Crimea is one of many regions of the former Soviet Union fraught with
economic, political, and social instability. Surrounded by the Black
Sea, the Crimean peninsula was once a prime vacation spot during the
Soviet era. Crimea is now a part of Ukraine, which is struggling with
the highest unemployment rates in the country, political upheaval, and
brewing ethnic tension.
The Crimean peninsula covers a territory of approximately 26,000
square kilometers. The population is nearly 2.5 million. Ethnic
Russians comprise 64% of the population, 23% are Ukrainians, 10%
Crimean Tatar, 3% Belorussian, Armenian, Greek, German, Jews, and
others. Crimea was considered a part of Russian territory, up until
1954, when it was handed over to Ukraine. Since Crimea became a part
of Ukraine, the Russian ethnic minority population in Crimea has found
itself in a complicated predicament. In the same sense, the Ukrainian
population struggles with the fact that they are a minority in their
own land. Even more complex is the situation of the Crimean Tatars. In
1944, the Crimean Tatar population (260,000 people) was deported to
Central Asia and Siberia en masse by Stalin. During the last ten
years, approximately half of the deported population of ethnic Tatars
have returned to their "homeland" only to find that they are
repeatedly denied citizenship rights, access to education, employment,
and housing. In May 1999, 20,000 Crimean Tatars joined together in
protest against these discriminatory practices, which in turn provoked
a negative reaction from the minority ethnic Russian population, who
felt threatened. In addition to the brewing ethnic tensions between
the "majority" minority ethnic Russians and the Crimean Tatars, the
presence of the Russian Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol further
exacerbates political relations between Ukraine and Russia. Today, the
Crimea remains threatened by competing ethno-political ambitions, and
the potential for further unrest is significant and troubling.
Ukraine's national budget has been severely crippled by the economic
crisis and the growing burden of debt. The government is ill-equipped
to constructively handle the deteriorating situation in Crimea.
Limited financial resources which were intended to aid the region have
been curtailed or eliminated from the state budget.
Fortunately, in the Crimea and throughout Ukraine, the conflicts among
different ethnic groups and their political elite did not result in
any violence or armed clashes. In Ukraine, the 'war of laws' has not
developed into civil, intra- or inter-state war, as had happened in
many regions of the former USSR. In March 1995, after several years of
concessions and a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs
of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (ARC), the central authorities
took the first decisive step toward a legal-political solution of the
conflict between the constitution of Ukraine and the Crimea. On March
1995 the Supreme Rada of Ukraine annulled all legislative acts of the
ARC which were not consistent with Ukrainian legislation. The
institution of the presidency was abolished and the law "On the
Autonomous Republic of the Crimea" was adopted.
During the last 60 years, as a result of ethno-migrational processes,
the ethnic structure of the population of Crimea has changed
considerably. In traditionally multinational and stable Crimea, the
balance of material resources and multicultural harmony has been
broken. As a result, problems of ethnic nature have sprung up. At the
same time, Crimea, as no other region, has the structures to develop
once again into a multicultural state, and to solve all its problems
by mutual agreement space, because:
- for thousands of years, various ethnic groups have peacefully
coexisted in Crimea. Even during times of war and invasions, no war or
historically significant conflict has ever involved interethnic
strife;
- Crimea is known as "the good neighborhood" of different religions.
It has remained this way throughout history, irregardless of the
number or type of followers of various religious beliefs who inhabited
the peninsula. Nowadays, when conflicts having inter-religious
foundations are on the rise, Crimea serves as a very good example to
the rest of the world, as a place where Muslims peacefully coexist
alongside Christians.
However, various analyses of the current social situation in Crimea
show that one of the basic reasons for which there is so much tension
is due to the fact that the government is operating between both
west-focused and east-focused ideologies. Furthermore, the official
governing bodies do not always adequately estimate and understand the
needs of both the Crimean Tatars and the Slavic population.
Currently, the governing bodies are attempting to pursue a policy of
affirmative action, and cross-cultural adapters, and are using the
appropriate analytical tools for the resolution of ethnic conflict
and hence, peacebuilding in the Crimea.
The concept of peacebuilding was proposed by Boutros Boutros-Ghali in
"An Agenda for Peace," in 1992. There are three elements which are
central to the concept of peacebuilding:
1) the rehabilitation, reconstruction, and reconciliation of
societies that have suffered the ravages of armed conflict;
2) the creation of the security-related, political and/ or
socio-economic mechanisms needed to build trust between the opposing
parties in order to prevent the resumption of violence;
3) external (foreign) intervention (at the national or multilateral
levels or the UN) to help create conditions conducive to peace.
Peacebuilding is one of the popular concepts underpinning UN missions
today. However, case studies of peacebuilding show that the standards
which peacebuilding call for often conflict with prevailing local
conditions, despite the fact that the countries in question had
undergone a process of democratization, adopted a market economy, and
followed the advice of international organizations and agencies. Now
scholars and political activists begin to stress that successful
peacebuilding must be based on the social-psychological models of a
given society. In this article, we will attempt to describe how
ethnic and cultural peculiarities may influence the processes of
ethnic conflict and peacebuilding.
The person carrying out his ability to live within the boundaries of
social validity always estimates and expresses the attitude to the
validity as a whole, to the particular forms of this validity, upon
which it is structured: moral, legal, economic, or political. This
attitude expressed in the person, is his mentality (criteria for the
estimation of a situation, value system orientations, representations.
The social mentality (social cognition) is presently being analyzed by
scholars within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
(Abulhanova-Slavskaya, Belitskaya, Belyaeva, Starovoitenko), and by
those outside of the CIS (Asch S., Davies M., Forgas J.P., Brooks-Cunn
J., Lewis M., Scheneider D.J., Srull T.K. etc.). Each person does not
simply react to stimulus, but creates his own Weltanshauung (or his
own theory of the world) and human attitudes. According to the
principle of the activity of perception, each person creates his own
interpretation of a situation (Petrenko V.F., Pohilko V. I., Shmelev
etc.). On the basis of such a structure, there are the subjective
spaces of reflections consisting of constructions - ways of
estimation and differentiation of objects, values, and representations
(J.Kelly, F.Fransella, D.Bannister).
Consciousness contains some cognitive models of ethnic situations on
the basis of cultural and national representations, and the subjective
experience of the members of society. As it was shown in the research
of Van Deik, oftentimes, negative characteristics of one of the
aspects of an ethnic situation are reported to the whole particular
group of the representatives of the minority. In such a case, a
stereotypisation of the norms and estimations of the behavior of other
peoples, recipes of actions, and reactions are formed.
The cognitive structures prevent one from estimating adequately not
only disputed situations and laws, but also the need of other people
and national groups. But if people cannot satisfy their needs within
the frameworks of social institutions, then they begin to work outside
of these frameworks (J. Berton.). Therefore, it is necessary to
conduct a careful analysis of both the needs of the existing national
groups, and the degree of their satisfaction.
*****************************
If you wish to submit your paper to MMCP Database of Research Papers,
please, read the attached call for papers (omitted, sorry - B.) or
contact Petra Kovacs at [email protected]
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