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Scottish Traveller Education Programme
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Resources: Articles: EXCLUSION OF TRAVELLERS IN STATE SCHOOLSELIZABETH JORDAN, Director, Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP)Educational Research Vol. 43 No. 2 Summer 2001 117-132click here for a printer-friendly version of this article SUMMARYTravellers in Scotland and the rest of the UK are often still mobile. In particular, the showground and circus communities remain highly mobile for much of the year. The overt stereotyping, discrimination and racial prejudice faced mostly by Gypsies and Travellers is said to keep them out of schools and certainly has contributed to low attendance levels and even non-attendance and dropout before the due leaving date. The research carried out in Scotland over a six-year period included both quantitative and qualitative methods, targeted schools, local authorities and a range of Travellers representing different groups, life-styles and generations. The reality of disrupted learning for schools and for Travellers is revealed. For those who do access schools and attend regularly there are still many covert barriers to successful learning. Such institutional discrimination has not previously been researched and is hardly acknowledged, yet makes a significant contribution to Travellers' success or failure in school. The mismatch between these pupils' particular learning needs and the provision made for a settled, local community offers a paradigm for many other interrupted learners: reduced self-esteem, demotivation, disaffection and eventual dropout for some. The essentially excluding school system and the self-excluding Traveller pupil (parental condoned absence) conspire to perpetuate cycles of underachievement and marginalization, confirming their social exclusion within society. Yet, at a grass roots level, innovative projects and approaches are being developed on an ad hoc basis. At the European level, particular emphasis is put on the need for open and Distance Learning to support Travellers. The lack of state funded-support for out of school learning does little to engage Travellers with learning. The findings are described and analysed within the broader framework of the literature and practices in this area in Europe and Australia. INTRODUCTIONThis paper highlights the interface between a group, known as Travellers, who are consistently represented as 'outsiders' to the settled community and the schools in which they enrol. The adoption of a life-style which includes periods of mobility, often with no settled base, leads to fragmented school attendance, early dropout and most often scholastic underachievement compared with settled peers. Schools, which claim to be comprehensive, employ mixed ability teaching, individualized programmes and support for learning where necessary, do not show evidence of sufficient flexibility in the management of resources or teaching and learning methods to meet this challenge. Travellers are not unique in this respect: their situation is comparable to that of many other pupils who experience similar fragmented education. What is unique is the particular degree of ignorance of their cultures and the prejudicial stereotyping to which they are subjected throughout Europe. The research described here was undertaken to try to understand the reasons for the high early dropout rate of Travellers from schools. Institutional exclusion and self-exclusion were both found to contribute, yet formal exclusion as it applies to other pupils was found to be only a small part of the overall picture. The reasons were complex and multidimensional, with all players, the schools, the Traveller parents and the Traveller pupils, contributing to the final outcome. TRAVELLER GROUPS AND IDENTITIESThe generic title, Traveller, subsumes many different groupings, but all with a long history within European societies (Fraser, 1992). Currently the European Parliament has divided Travellers into two main subgroups: the Occupational Travellers comprising show or fairground, circus and bargee families (Resolution No. 89/C 153/01) and the Gypsy and Traveller group which includes all those who traditionally travelled within and between states, with a distinctive culture and life-style, including the maintenance of a language separate to that of the country of residence (Resolution No. 89/C 153/02). Even this categorizing is stereotyping: there are as many distinctions and differences within the Traveller groups as there are between them and the settled majority, the non-Traveller, the 'flatties', 'gadjies', 'scaldies' or 'country people/hantle' as they are variously called by the Travellers in Scotland. Occupational Travellers make no claim for ethnic identity, despite proudly retaining a family-centred cultural approach, with strict rules on inheritance of allotted places at fairs, passing down of rides and stalls and close intermarrying to maintain a highly hierarchical society, based on family, wealth (success) and privilege. Traditional Travellers and Gypsies, in contrast, place their ethnic identity, through birth, as central to the construct and maintenance of their closed society. The Swann Report (1985) highlighted the degree to which Gypsy Traveller children experienced racism as being the worst of all the ethnic minority groups studied. Their experiences of discrimination and racial prejudice within schools has led to social exclusion and a rejection of schooling (Acton, 1985; Liegeois, 1987). Within Europe, Travellers have been identified as the largest non-literate group thus excluding them from job markets and leaving them increasingly dependent on state benefits for subsistence as opportunities for self-employed, casual labour diminish. Education is determined as being vital in redressing their present marginalization and social exclusion (Acton, 1985; Holmes, 1985; Liegeois, 1998). Gypsy Travellers remain socially excluded and increasingly are being formally excluded from state schools once enrolled (OFSTED, 1996, 1999; Jordan, 1996, 1998; Lloyd and Norris, 1998; Lloyd, Stead and Jordan, 1999a, 1999b). While in schools their relative underachievement gives serious cause for concern for the quality and relevance of the educational experience they receive (OFSTED, 1996, 1999). Kenny's research on Travellers in a Traveller-only school reveals the extent to which a formal education is an irrelevance in Irish Travellers' lives (Kenny, 1997). Her views are compatible with those of Andereck (1992) and Jordan (1998) and, to some extent, with Danaher (1996). The challenges facing educationalists and Travellers to overcome this situation are far deeper than the EU or government departments acknowledge. Looking for causes of Traveller underachievement and rejection of schooling has occupied few researchers. Instead, there is a tacit assumption that the initial research undertaken at European level (on Gypsy Traveller groups: Liegeois, 1987, 1998) and the recommendations made, largely by non-educationalists, stand for all cases. The statistics provided by Acton and Kenrick (1985) for the Liegeois report reiterated much of the Swann evidence: schools were racially prejudiced against Gypsy Travellers, therefore they underachieved and were excluded. At the same time, Knaepkens (1987, 1988) produced similar dossiers for the European Commission, on the situation of Occupational Travellers. He too found that Occupational Travellers underachieved and rejected formal schooling, but significantly, he made no connection between these facts and racism in schools. Instead, he identified lack of ready access to and uptake of schools, principally due to the Travellers' mobility, high absenteeism and the low relevance of academic qualifications to their businesses and life-styles. The continued separate legislation and actions throughout Europe to combat the social exclusion of both Traveller groups and to raise their achievement in schools indicates a focus on the particular situation of the learner rather than on more general problems within a fundamentally inflexible and exclusionary, ethnocentric system (Troyna and Vincent, 1996). ATTENDANCE AND ABSENCE: THE INTERRUPTED LEARNERIn Scotland there has long been an acknowledgement of the particular educational situation of (Tinker) Travellers in relation to their mobility patterns. The Departmental Committee Report on Habitual Offenders, Vagrants, etc. of 1895 to both Houses of Parliament identified their situation as enforced exclusion by the parents and proposed the removal of the children from such families to boarding-schools as a means of ensuring their education and an ability to gain paid employment to cut the cycle of deprivation. A very different approach was used later (1908) in recognition of those who did send their children to schools during the winter period who were allowed to remove their children from school over the summer months as they travelled for work. More recently, this has been affirmed by the Scottish Office with the inclusion of the specific case of Travellers within the 1/95 Circular to schools on 'authorized absences'. Thus, Travellers' life-styles are acknowledged and legitimized. THE RESEARCHThe research in Scotland over the past nine years gives all the players, the educationalists, the pupils and the parents, a voice. By drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data from a variety of providers and Traveller clients, it has been possible to construct the multidimensional factors which contribute to Travellers' attendance and achievement rates. A questionnaire was sent annually to every school in Scotland over a five-year period in order to identify patterns of Traveller attendance and absence. Statistics on the numbers and type of Travellers, their lengths of stay, the availability of pupil records and specialist resources provided, together with the types of support supplied by local authorities was gathered and analysed. In addition, local authorities were sent three questionnaires, one to each Chief Executive and two to each Director of Education, intended to cross-check with the information gathered from the schools and to verify the existence of policy and the identified personnel with responsibilities for progressing the policy. From the information gathered five schools were selected for further face-to-face interviews, and one primary and four secondary schools for examination of each Traveller pupil's attendance records over a five-year period to establish the minutiae of the patterns emerging from the national survey. In addition, Travellers of all ages were interviewed to secure their accounts of the school experience. The resulting information is a unique collection of data in Europe, giving an indication of some of the main findings which are pertinent to this paper. Table 1 reveals the number of schools reporting a Traveller presence in the session indicated, together with a breakdown into the length of stay of each Traveller family reported. The missing figures represent the schools which sent in a return but omitted to report the number of families attending. Table 2 provides a summary of the various types of Travellers reported as attending the schools. In general, they reflect the high preponderance of Travellers' use of local authority official sites. The relatively high rate of attendance from unofficial sites was unexpected and seems to support the Travellers' statements that they make their own arrangements for stopping with farmers and other landowners. However, it had been expected that there would have been a much higher reporting of housed Travellers attending school, since Travellers maintain that most Travellers are housed. The figures may reflect the ignorance of the schools as to Travellers' identity or the reluctance of housed Travellers to reveal that identity. In the case of Gypsy Travellers, it was possible to examine the registers of several primary schools with reasonably consistent annual enrolments of Travellers from nearby official Traveller sites (two local authority and one private). For example, the primary school with the highest numbers of Travellers regularly enrolling, usually around 50 per annum, revealed the complexity of the comings and goings of the Gypsy Traveller families (Table 3). The patterns were found to be varied according to the type of work undertaken by the family: enrolment being from a half-day to a full session, with absenteeism while enrolled being around 33 per cent. Job opportunities were linked closely with mobility patterns, although socializing for family events, such as births, weddings, funerals, keeping in contact with relatives, etc., was also a major contributing factor. Not only did some families return in successive years for short visits, but some even returned several times in one session (Table 4). Such a high degree of mobility is not seen in any other group of interrupted learners, although some Forces children in the past have been enrolled in as many as 16 different primary schools (Ritchie, 1965). The effect of having as many as 16 different Traveller pupils in and out of the same P1 class in one session is not difficult to appreciate and is not easily absorbed by any school. There was no school which identified a significant number of Gypsy Travellers at secondary stage; however, one school with a nearby Gypsy Traveller site and housed Travellers was chosen as one of the case studies. Similar patterns were not seen in Occupational Travellers, the great majority of whom over-winter in Glasgow and have attended Glasgow schools since at least the early 1900s. The research into four secondary schools with a high number regularly attending showed a wide range of intermittent attendance. Altogether, 47 Occupational Traveller pupils were identified together with their enrolling patterns, many changing schools in successive sessions and quite significant numbers dropping out of school altogether before the legal leaving age (Table 5). Yet these schools were said to be popular with the Occupational Traveller families. Apart from emergencies, Occupational Travellers tended to retain their social functions for the winter period; thus Occupational Traveller pupils most often only had one or two weeks of absence during the winter school period due to family holidays and odd days for attendance at weddings. Their attendance levels while wintering were thus high and often higher than their settled peers in some schools (Jordan and Carroll, 1994).
Notes: * Due to disturbance on site some families moved off. Year 1, 1991/2; Year 2, 1992/3; Year 3, 1993/4; Year 4, 1994/5
SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC EXCLUSIONThere is good evidence of endemic racism and bullying in Scottish schools despite strong anti-racist and anti-bullying policies (Mellor, 1999). Policy development work in this area has not highlighted Travellers as being of any particular concern. In general, emphasis is placed on black, English, socio-economic cultures and class issues, with certain communities, most often in areas of socioeconomic poverty and high unemployment, being targeted for action and regeneration projects somewhat reminiscent of the actions based on 'school meals' indicators. The Scottish Executive shows no more awareness than the general public of the reality of the diversity and pluralism within Scottish society since its recent Green Paper on Housing made no mention of the 'accommodation' needs of citizens, but only of 'housing'; nor is there any mention made of Travellers in the Social Inclusion Strategy documents and Scottish Office response to the Stephen Lawrence Enquiry. Travellers report most frequently experiencing name-calling and some associated physical bullying. All Travellers interviewed about school exclusion reported being called 'Gypo', 'Mink' or 'Tink', irrespective of the reality of their ethnic status (Lloyd et al., 1999a, 1999b). Their reactions to such 'taunting' varied not only between individuals, but also between the two groups, with showground pupils paradoxically apparently less concerned or affected by it. However, it is consistently mentioned by Gypsy Travellers as a key factor in alienating them from school and society. Whether it is a fundamental cause or a useful excuse for withdrawal from school is not certain, for, commonly throughout Europe, Gypsy Travellers are also known to prevent their children continuing at school, even when they enjoy it and express a wish to do so, thus giving rise to the hypothesis that families may be operating a form of self-exclusion, using name-calling and bullying as an excuse to preserve ethnic purity and boundaries. Any close contact with non-Travellers offers a threat to the exclusiveness of the group. Many Gypsy Traveller parents took care to emphasize that it was not the school which was the problem, but the other children and, by association, the local community. They viewed schools as less overtly racist than society in general. Incidences reported usually occurred outside of the classroom and the teachers' jurisdiction, particularly in the playground and on the journey to and from school. School buses shared with settled pupils were a particularly difficult experience and, despite appeals to one school and ultimately the local authority's Director of Education, no specific action was taken and the bullied Gypsy Traveller pupil felt forced to give up school despite doing well academically. The covert racism readily identified by academics and rights workers went largely unnoted and unchallenged by Travellers themselves. They saw little point in pursuing redress when open racism elicits little formal response from schools and the local authorities. No Occupational Traveller allowed their child to stay out of school due to name-calling; they themselves had experienced it at school and viewed it as 'part of the turf'. Nor did any Occupational Traveller pupil indicate it as a reason for dropping out, although there were incidences of bullying reported by a few pupils. Parents tended to remove their children to more supportive schools. It was significant that Occupational Traveller parents, probably due to their own educational experiences (albeit short) in the same city schools, demonstrated sufficient 'cultural capital' to use their rights to negotiate a change of school through the placing request system, yet many of these parents were found to be semi-literate and some even functionally illiterate. Families banded together in adversity and moved children en bloc from one school to another when a particular incident arose (Jordan and Carroll, 1994). Older Occupational Traveller pupils (14-15 years), however, were found to vote with their feet and simply removed themselves from school or did not return to any school the following winter. There are oral reports of a few 12-13-year-olds still not attending any school, but this has not been possible to verify so far. The cultural values of Occupational Travellers allow a high degree of self-decision-making from an early age and this is seen to be a factor in parents' condoning their children's dropout from school. The youngster's opinion is respected and understood, particularly as many of the parents themselves left school early, and in some cases, usually male, had had little or no formal secondary-level schooling. Travellers, in common with other marginalized communities, rarely use official complaints procedures, preferring (perhaps reluctantly) to vote with their feet. The schools interviewed were found to be caring and concerned, perhaps not unexpectedly, since the continued high presence of Travellers already gave an indication of user satisfaction. However, an area of common weakness was in the lack of pedagogical development for an interrupted and itinerant group. Schools were full of admiration for these Occupational Traveller pupils and their ability to work hard and contribute to the school community during the winter months, but reported them falling behind increasingly in their studies with each successive session despite having work packs to take away with them for the summer months. The coup de grâce was reported by all secondary schools to be the pupils' difficulties in completing the work portfolios while travelling. These portfolios contributed to their continuous assessment at Standard Grade (the national examinations in Scotland for all S4 year pupils) whose introduction in the late 1980s was intended, ironically, to facilitate the success of a broader range of pupils. At the end of S3 year (usually age 14-15), most Occupational Traveller pupils realized the increasing probability of failure and the resulting demotivation, even for some very able pupils, led to many simply dropping out i.e. they did not return to school the following winter. By this time, most of the pupils were working throughout the travelling season in the family business, some even being owners of stalls and rides. The ability to earn and being treated as a contributing member within their community contrasted sharply with the 'diminishing' experience of school. Schools did little to actively pursue them to return, for they were used to them enrolling elsewhere or even, it was thought, not returning to the city. Mobility supports choices: 'missing' Traveller pupils have freedom from pursuit in comparison with settled truants, but are comparable to the situation of homeless and separated families who move frequently or without giving an explanation to their schools. The issue of school and local authority responsibility for ensuring that all children of school age in their area are receiving a proper education has long been fudged, with no local authority having been held responsible for dereliction of their duty in this respect; although individual schools have received negative HMI reports for absenteeism, but only when the numbers of pupils involved are high. Traveller numbers are never large in any one school, so their truanting escapes detection by the normal accountability procedures. It is also found that on the few occasions when local authorities have pursued a Traveller family through the Children's Panel procedures, the family simply moves the child out of that local authority, most often claiming that s/he has gone to stay with a relative in England. All action is dropped and the child is free then to return unobserved and does not re-enrol at school. As with homeless pupils and those from split families, it is problematic to determine which school, and even which local authority in some circumstances, actually has responsibility for the mobile child. However, any school close to a Gypsy Traveller's site or showground without all such pupils enrolling should be seriously examining its welcome, ethos and pedagogy. TOWARDS INCLUSIVE SCHOOLING FOR INTERRUPTED LEARNERSThe schools that did receive regular visitations reported looking forward to their arrival, both staff and pupils, with some few trying to maintain contact by letters during the session. However, it is not always easy or possible for Traveller families with little or no literacy skills to remain in touch this way. Schools still are struggling to find ways to include fully non-literate families and some, in common with the Scottish Executive, make no acknowledgement of the problem at all, yet, paradoxically, may have school information letters translated into a variety of other languages as part of their equal opportunities policies. Increasingly, as they see the showground business become less financially secure and offering a reduced standard of living, Occupational Traveller parents express a hope that their children acquire qualifications both to cope with the growth in regulations with associated paperwork governing their work and for alternative employment. Thus more secondary-level Occupational Traveller pupils now stay behind in the city with elderly or settled relatives while the family travels. Being apart from their children is not a favoured option: so some parents now cover daily an extraordinary number of miles, ferrying their children back to the city winter-base school from the temporary showground site, usually once or twice a week, for tutoring, marking of completed work and obtaining new work packs. This has resulted in at least two such mobile pupils achieving entrance to university this session. It should be stated that over the years some of the more settled Occupational Traveller pupils have achieved university entrance and now pursue professional lives outside the shows but retain a working interest in the showground business to differing degrees and still claim membership of the community. Families report that there is little point in secondary children enrolling at a series of schools, given the organization of the secondary school, the curriculum delivery and the limits on class sizes. There is little opportunity for coherence and continuity across and between schools; each school interprets the curriculum guidelines and delivers it in the style and sequence it wishes, while ensuring that throughout the year, and across the years, it will cover all the aspects necessary for the national examinations at Years S4, S5 and S6. Usually, to maintain continuity in progress, primary-stage Occupational Travellers are enrolled at a succession of schools, each in the vicinity of the showground as they travel round Scotland. Parents have reported that most schools they visit for a week (or, at most, two to three weeks, depending on the type of show) receive them willingly and slot the children into appropriate age-related classes and work groups within the class. There are some schools, however, who still do not use the children's work packs, nor contact the base school for advice, reciprocal reporting and recording of information on progress. A very few schools still make it difficult to enrol for such short periods, but word passes round the show community and they tend never to be approached again. For long there has been a concern that despite enrolling at schools while travelling, the lack of continuity and curriculum fragmentation have contributed to pupils' learning difficulties: there is credible evidence of a higher than usual incidence of specific literacy difficulties in the showground pupils, much of it familial. In some respects, parallels can be drawn with the difficulties experienced by Forces children as they move around bases (Ritchie, 1965). Their situation has long been acknowledged with some positive governmental action taken. But, as yet, little has been done to ensure that Occupational Traveller pupils participate in all the normal screening and testing arrangements. The time taken for formal testing of a specific difficulty, and the difficulty in ensuring remedial support while travelling, contributes to the continuation of the problem, thus many pupils who give evidence of high oral ability are seen to be failing in the more formal written curriculum. Only a handful of the pupils have so far had their special needs identified and recorded. One such, a mature woman, has recently enrolled at university through the second-chance Access route, but despite having a record of needs has not as yet received all the help to which she is entitled. Her determination, even against the peer pressure within her community, is recognized and is being supported through a very testing first year. She has now identified one of her own children suffering from the same problems, although regularly attending the local school for the full session. Yet the school is in no hurry to begin the necessary formal assessments in order to identify the child's specific difficulties and secure a record of needs. One self-identified need for mobile Travellers has been for hand-held pupil records which families can pass on to each succeeding school during the season for information and updating. Thus, on their return to the winter-base school, there is a record of the child's attainments and progress on which the school can develop teaching plans. Several families have themselves kept a journal of their children's progress but often met with resistance to their use in schools visited. Following the example developed by an international group through the European Federation for the Education of Occupational Travellers (EFECOT) work plan and supported by SOCRATES funds, the city has developed such a record book for each showground child based on the Scottish 5-14 curriculum guidelines. All other local authorities, bar one, have welcomed these as a positive contribution to help inclusion of Occupational Traveller pupils in their schools and have agreed to cooperate in their use. The session 1999/2000 sees the first use of these by all the schools. Given the reluctance of schools in general to use others' reports on pupils as a baseline for developing teaching plans, it is questionable whether these long-awaited records will indeed make a significant contribution to continuity and coherence in the Occupational Traveller pupils' learning experiences and achievements. The European initiative on Travellers places the use of Distance Learning high on the agenda for development actions, but this requires serious examination of the implications of such a resource. Distance Learning is a sophisticated approach to teaching and requires high levels of independence in learners, thus it seems an unlikely vehicle for ensuring success in less literate families. However, using the new technologies offers a variety of possibilities, many of which schools are increasingly developing within their curricula for all pupils as forms of open learning. For example, the use of audio and video tapes linked to worksheets, computer programs, accessing internet facilities, e-mail and video-conferencing have proved motivating and rewarding for a variety of learners, from the most able pupils, requiring particular challenges, to those with a variety of special needs. Some winter schools have collaborated in international pilots of the use of technology to link the pupils with their base school (TOPILOT and FLEX). One such school has prepared all their Occupational Traveller pupils' work for the summer season, with a member of support staff designated to receive the pupils' electronic communications, distribute work for marking, compile and update electronic records and regularly mark and return work with personal supporting comments to the pupils. The pupils have enjoyed this mode of learning, but the degree of preparation and the time taken to support the pupils at a distance has been high. Such an approach demands extra staffing and an ability to convert class teaching plans and materials into a useful form of Distance Learning. Teacher training programmes and staff development sessions do not at present include such skills and theoretical perspectives. There are also some drawbacks for the families: the type of electricity available is not always compatible with computer use and mobile phones are not reliable everywhere and are costly. But, despite this, there is evidence of increasing use of computers in the Occupational Traveller trailers not just for the children, but for the women who, generally, are responsible for maintaining the financial records for the family businesses. The issue of compatibility between computer systems has as yet not been made clear to the show families, so there would seem to be the opportunity for some failures and increased frustration at the lack of progress. Gypsy Travellers are reported as being rarely in touch with any school between visits and few bring any evidence of attendance at other schools. Through the Traveller Education Services (TESs) in England and Wales it has been possible to identify a few Gypsy Traveller families who travel extensively, and attend TES provision in England and Wales, yet rarely produce any hand-held records to support their educational progress. The Green Card system developed by the DfEE and used extensively by English TESs has proved no more successful than the old 'leaving lines' did in Scotland up to the mid-1980s. One must then seriously question the intentions of mobile Gypsy Travellers and the relevance of state school education to the family and cultural life. The simplistic application of a few methods which are proving successful with other groups will not guarantee success for such pupils. Distance Learning is a sophisticated concept used by those who are already academically competent, traditionally it has had little relevance to non-literate societies, although this is changing as Australia and South Africa increasingly collaborate in research and develop techniques for use in mass education programmes for previously non-literate and uneducated groups (Danaher, 2000). The Gypsy Traveller situation is perhaps the ultimate test of flexibility within the state education system. The common good may be served by compulsory attendance of all children, but the pain and the sense of failure which is reported by many Gypsy Travellers demand that the good of the individual must also be considered. The European proposal for positive role models being brought into schools does little to acknowledge the high degree of family separation within the Gypsy Traveller world; one Gypsy Traveller family group is unlikely to be impressed by the achievements of another with whom it does not have a direct, positive relationship (Fonseca, 1995). Other interrupted learners, such as the chronically sick and the children of Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities returning for extended visits to maintain contact with previous homeland and relations, hope for and demand tangible forms of support for continuity in learning while out of school. On an individual basis, both for them and the schools, they are successful to varying degrees, but there is little systemized support, nor an automatic right to such support. Even where resources are provided by a school, tutorial support is limited and almost never given by the pupils' own teacher(s). The quality of their curriculum experience is also questionable, since most often the teachers allocated for home visits are not subject specialists, but centralized supply staff with little or inappropriate specialist training. The hours allocated to such pupils are low, with a maximum of five hours per week being the norm. Nor are all pupils given parity; some families report having to fight the system in order to get their child's special needs recognized and met (Closs and Norris, 1997). CONCLUSIONIf there is, then, such an apparently inadequate response to the needs of a 'deserving' group, the chronically sick, one can readily surmise the unlikelihood of any improvement in the situation of the 'undeserving' Travellers (as they are generally portrayed). The school education system presents many barriers to learning and achievement for pupils, from overt racism, name-calling and other forms of bullying to institutional discrimination. Attempts at bullying Gypsy Traveller pupils, mainly boys, often result in physical retaliation which, in turn, is viewed negatively by the schools who instead of dealing with the underlying issues find it easier to formally exclude the Gypsy Traveller pupil for a few days, with the result that the pupil drops out and nothing is done to implement a reintegration programme. In a sense, the schools passively collude with Gypsy Traveller parents to support absenteeism. The conflict arising from the mismatch in local authority provision and some families' and learners' particular needs is not to be resolved easily, not only for Travellers, but for many others who have specific or particular needs not normally met within the existing structures of resources and practices. Both schools and Travellers have rights and responsibilities, but at present the construct and organization of the education system supports the schools' needs rather than the marginalized learners'. However, the inception of the new Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament are thought to provide an opportunity to take forward a fully inclusive agenda. The new Racial Equality Advisory Forum offers a direct voice for Travellers, but as yet there is no indication that a representative will be included on the committee, although there is of many black and other ethnic minority groups. The social inclusion platform provides the opportunity for local authorities to review their existing policies and practices with a view to combating social exclusion, but as yet no performance indicators are directed at monitoring the full range of issues which are necessary to ensure genuine inclusion not just of Gypsy Travellers, as an ethnic group, but of all interrupted learners whom the schools barely acknowledge as their responsibility. 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6444; fax: 0131 651 6511
page updated 5 January 2004 |