School Mediators in the Romanian Education System. A Discussion on Their Role in Addressing Educational Inequalities

Based on findings from the project ‘Socio-graphic mapping of the Roma Communities in Romania for a community-level monitoring of changes with regard to Roma integration’, the article analyses the role of school mediators in influencing school practices for the reduction of the inequalities Roma students face within the education system. This study investigates the school mediators’ perception of causes and solutions for the difficulties Roma students face within the education system, while keeping in mind the current legislation and the public discourse on Roma. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding, we also investigate school mediators’ perception towards their work, as well as the manner they evaluate collaboration with colleagues, Roma families and other local stakeholders. Our findings illustrate that the school mediator carries out a multitude of tasks sometimes only partly related to the field of school mediation. At the same time, school mediators engage in a type of public discourse with regard to Roma which highlights individual responsibility and merits as solutions in order to overcome disadvantage. With regard to work satisfaction, although school mediators are poorly trained and they deal with a difficult and high amount of work, they report being highly satisfied with some aspects of their work.