Between Antigypsyism and Human Rights Education: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representations of the Roma Holocaust in European Textbooks

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v4i2.96

Keywords:

critical discourse analysis, education, textbooks, antigypsyism, Roma, Roma holocaust

Abstract

This paper investigates representations of the Roma Holocaust in European textbooks on history, civics, and geography for pupils in upper primary to the end of secondary education. By applying critical discourse analysis (CDA) to a dataset of 472 passages and images referring to the Roma Holocaust from 869 textbooks, this paper reveals educational discourses of in/exclusion by focusing on narratives and linguistic tools, such as speech acts, level of detail and specificity, perspectives in semantic and grammatical forms, vocabulary and syntax. Most knowledge disseminated on the Roma Holocaust concerns numbers and technicalities of murder while Roma-specific details, survivor stories, and individual voices, as well as Romani terminology for the Holocaust (Porrajmos) are rare. Generally, the textbooks show little commitment to circulating knowledge about the Roma Holocaust, or specifically focusing on civic or human rights education. Portrayals of the Roma Holocaust are permeated by both explicitly and implicitly racist discourses, coupled with a distinct lack of critical tools with
which to deconstruct these narratives. Overall, current textbook representations of the Roma Holocaust mirror social discourse and possibly serve to reproduce Romani exclusion and risk reinforcing antigypsyism attitudes.

Author Biographies

  • Marko Pecak

    Marko Pecak is an independent scholar and research consultant, as well as the former Research Officer at the Roma Education Fund. His research looks at topics related to educational and social inclusion. He incorporates intersectional approaches from behavioural science, sociology, critical race theory, and social psychology. His background is in public policy. He has a Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

  • Riem Spielhaus, Professor of Islamic Studies at Georg-August-University Göttingen and head of the department ‘Knowledge in Transition‘ at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute

    Riem Spielhaus is head of the department ‘Knowledge in Transition‘ at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig, and Professor of Islamic Studies in education and knowledge cultures at Georg-August-University Göttingen. Her research focuses on the representation of minorities and Islam in European textbooks and recent textbook revisions in Arab countries. She, along with Simona Szakács-Behling and Marko Pecak, authored a report on the representation of Roma in European curricula and textbooks.

  • Simona Szakács-Behling, Senior Researcher, Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute, Braunschweig, Germany

    Simona Szakács-Behling is senior postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute in Germany. Her research focuses on Europeanisation, solidarity, ethno-cultural diversity, and (global) citizenship in education from a sociological, comparative, and transnational perspective. She has over a decade of experience in textbook and curriculum studies, and has published on changing notions of citizenship, nationhood, and identity-making in educational policies, educational media, and educational practices in various European education systems (e.g., England, France, Germany, Romania).

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Published

10/25/2022

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2021): Roma Holocaust, Memory, and Representation

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

Between Antigypsyism and Human Rights Education: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Representations of the Roma Holocaust in European Textbooks. (2022). Critical Romani Studies, 4(2), 100-120. https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v4i2.96