The available data shows that Slovenian elementary schools experience high drop-out rates of
Roma children, especially in elementary schools situated in the Dolenjska and Bela krajina
regions.
Roma children grow up in a cultural and linguistic environment that is much different from
the one their peers experience. The living conditions of the Roma people are worse than those
of the majority of the population. Roma parents are mostly uneducated and consequently
unemployed; due to their lack of schooling, their children are also deprived, since the parents
are unable to help them with their schoolwork. Moreover, Roma parents do not place a great
deal of importance on education at all, and therefore, they have low expectations regarding
their childrens' school success.
The purpose of this thesis was to study the influence of certain factors of the domestic
learning environment on the school performance of Roma children; namely, the socioeconomic
position of the families, the parents' knowledge regarding their childrens' education,
the acceptance of Roma children by their classmates, the knowledge of the Slovenian
language of Roma pupils and the participation in preschool education programmes were all
taken into account. In the thesis, a qualitative research approach and a descriptive research
method were used.
The sample used in the research included three Roma assistants, eight Roma families, twentythree
Roma school-age children and twenty-seven of their teachers. The data was obtained
through interviews and the observation of the home environment of Roma families, as well as
questionnaires given out to Roma assistants and teachers. The interviews were recorded and
later transcribed. All of the data obtained was then analyzed qualitatively.
The collected data shows that only two out of twenty-three Roma children that participated in
the research are enrolled in the ninth grade, while all the others attend lower grades. In
subjects such as Slovene language, Mathematics, English language, Social Science and
Science, the grades of Roma children are below average. Fourteen out of twenty-three
children had to repeat a year at least once. The domestic learning environment has a
detrimental effect on the learning performance of Roma children. Three families that
participated in the research have a low socio-economic standard. Teachers state that children
have a very modest vocabulary. At home, the members of families speak in the Romani
language, two families also use Croatian. The lack of knowledge of the Slovene language
could be addressed by early enrollment in a preschool program; however, only 8 of the 23
children interviewed attended kindergarten. Only 2 out of 23 children regularly bring home
homework. As many as 14 out of 23 children are often absent from school. Only two parents
of Roma families could tell exactly how successful their children are at school. The studied
domestic learning environment for Roma children does not provide enough incentive for
successful schooling to take place.
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