EDUCATION OF ADULT ROMA FROM MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES IN SLOVAKIA

The subject of this study is the analysis of the current state and of possibilities of the education's development of adult Roma from marginalized communities4 in the system of formal and informal education. We also include the concept of informal learning, which we, alongside with the necessary changes of formal and informal education, see as the potential space for reaching of the desired changes in the life of marginalized Roma. We look at these mentioned systems critically while we, with the analysis of current educational processes in adult age, point to the limits and lacks, which co-influence the lasting problem of low effectiveness of education of adult Roma from marginalized communities. We are sure that in the education of adult Roma it is necessary to implement the elements of individualization of edu1 Ph. D. in Adult Education, Assistant Lecturer at Department of Andragogy, University of Prešov in Prešov, Slovakia 2 Ph. D. in Pedagogy, Assistant Lecturer at Department of Andragogy, University of Prešov in Prešov, Slovakia 3 Docent in Pedagogy, Docent at Department of Andragogy, University of Prešov in Prešov, Slovakia 4 Marginalized segregated Roma communities are socially excluded Roma communities, whose inhabitants have restricted access to public service, goods and sources and to participation in deciding in a town. They have restricted contact with other inhabitants living outside their community. Their communities are on a lower social-economical level than other parts of town and have different characteristics, e.g. lower quality and overpopulation of the houses, absence of the infrastructure, high unemployment, income and material poverty of the inhabitants, lower level of education and higher amount of lower age categories [38, p. 4]. Segregated Roma communities (geographically separated independent settlements) and separated Roma communities (separated Roma parts, streets or colonies, which are a part of town) belong to the marginalized Roma communities in Slovakia [10, p. 11]. © Lukáč Marek, Lukáčová Silvia, Pirohová Ivana 519 Education of adult Roma from marginalized communities in Slovakia cation. The main aim of any educational and social interventions within this target group is the learners' critical reflection of the reality and of their own options for change. The basis for our methodology is the methodology of social sciences [9], the critical pedagogy [11] and the theory of cultural capital [4]. Formal adult education is realized in the sub-system of second-chance education. As the absence, resp. low level of education is a strong exclusive factor on labor market, we consider enabling Roma from marginalized communities to complete their education in a school system to be crucial. The level of education is still the strongest stratification factor not only on labor market. From the educational activities in the system of non-formal education point of view, we deal mainly with the problematic effectiveness of non-formal education in connection with barriers of participation in education. We also draw attention to the inadequately created educational activities, which still keep the marginalized Roma passive. In the process of informal learning we think of the potential of its results in favor of the development of individual potential of adult Roma. The background of our ideas about problems in all kinds of education of adult marginalized Roma as well as about the necessary changes, are situated mainly in the theories of emancipation pedagogy [11], cultural capital [4] and transformative learning [23]. After having examined the theories and practice of the adult marginalized Roma education in Slovakia we can say, that education is not sufficiently individualized on the basis of knowing and understanding of its participants – adult Roma, on the basis of knowing their specific human capital in interaction with everyday situation and contexts of their social and cultural environment and such as is not focused on the educational needs of adult Roma from marginalized communities. We see the individualization of education as a possible tool of the inclusion of Roma into the social structures of the society. The education as a complex phenomenon needs to be seen in the connection with knowing of the historically developing mutual relations of Roma and the majority, but, in the practice of planning and realizing of education, it is necessary to eliminate the prevailing view „we“ and „they. “