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Izmir, the third largest city of Turkey, is an important trade hub and port. Since its early years, the city has been the home of many civilisations, nations and cultures. The Romani people can be counted among these cultures. In the centre of Izmir city, there are around 500,000 Romani inhabitants. The increasing number of migrants to Izmir and the obligatory settlement options, usually in poorer neighbourhoods, aggravates the situation. Within this context, the focus of administrative authorities on poorer neighbourhoods with a significant Romani majority and its effects to and connections with the urban improvement programme must be re-evaluated considering the benefit of the city and social-institutional support, including non-governmental institutions, must be maintained.

In this chapter, the author describes the education of Roma, Sinti and Caminanti (RSC) children in Italy focussing on possible pathways to school inclusion. According to available national reports, there are about 140,000 RSC people living in Italy, who the author calls a ‘hidden minority’. The author provides detailed information on their ethnic origins and traditions, describes their legal and social situation, culture and language. Then the author outlines the attainment of RSC in the Italian education system and the most important policies to support their successful education. In conclusion, the author presents selected programmes to promote social inclusion and education of RSC children.

Roma in Croatia are spatially, economically and politically marginalised. There is a social gap between Roma minority and the majority of population. Prejudice and stereotypes against the Roma community are deeply rooted in the mind of the local community due to their insufficient knowledge of the Roma culture. The women of the Roma ethnicity are doubly marginalised, because of their Roma ethnicity and their gender. Roma women, more than Roma men, lack the basic elements necessary for self-realisation: education, healthcare, cultural and political participation. Roma generally have poor access to healthcare, and most of them do not have medical records. The Roma in Croatia most often speak Boyash (bajaški) or Romani chib. They speak both their mother tongue (Romani) and the language of the country they live in – standard Croatian. Students can study the Romani language and culture in higher education, at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Teacher Education at the University of Zagreb. Kali Sara, the Roma Association for the promotion of the education of Roma in the Republic of Croatia, organises courses for Roma children and young people on the Romani language, culture and life in general. As for the educational attainment of Roma, data show that Roma children are still rarely included in the preschool education system. A large number of Roma children do not complete compulsory education. They rarely attend secondary school. Very small number of Roma students graduate at the Faculty level.

Key international and intergovernmental organizations assess the size of the Roma population in Serbia to be around 4–600.000, rendering Serbia among the five countries in Europe with the highest percentage of Roma population. Although Roma in Serbia have a long history of self-organization, cultural and media organizations, and are formally recognized as national minorities with a National Council of the Roma National Minority as a body with political decision-making influence, the Roma community in Serbia, as in most other European countries, is the most disadvantaged and underprivileged group in the country, often living in underdeveloped neighbourhoods with limited access to social services, especially education and health.

The educational attainment of the Roma population in Serbia, as in other countries in Europe, is far below the attainment of the general population. The education indicators are showing a developing trend, albeit slow. Roma integration policies evolved in Serbia from the early 2000s in the general policy framework of Equity of Education and Inclusive Education and a comprehensive education reform agenda, promoted and legally endorsed by the 2009 Law on the Foundations of the Education System. As the consequence of such an approach, the Roma integration policies intertwined and mutually reinforced with other reform policy areas. The most important post-2000 policies supporting the integration of Roma students into education are the introduction of pedagogical assistants in elementary schools and preschool institutions as a profession, paid from the budget, abolishing the system of school readiness assessment, introducing individual education plans and intensifying affirmative action and scholarships for enrolment in secondary and tertiary education.

Roma, as a poor group of people differing from the majority, have been mostly at the edge of society, both in people’s minds and spatially excluded. The Roma community in Slovakia is often among those groups that are most at risk of poverty, discrimination and social exclusion. It is necessary for adults to have a job and their children of quality education. But significant part of the Roma suffers from marginalisation in the labour market and is sometimes even completely excluded from the formal labour market. Roma children are lost in the educational system. Level of academic achievement is highly dependent on a child’s socioeconomic background, suggesting that the educational system still fails to provide social equality in education or a fair distribution of educational resources for all according to their needs. Several strategies for various areas of enhancement of status of Roma have been developed. Some of them have remained strategies, and some of them have been implemented and have been included also in the Slovak legislation. The most significant in education are the year 0 in primary schools, the addition of pedagogical assistants, and some projects with a focus on inclusion in education and institutional assistance through community centres.

The given chapter of the monograph presents the distribution and diversity of the Romani community in Poland, their current social situation in reference to the period of socioeconomic changes in Poland as well as the results of research conducted by the authors regarding the education of young Romani in Poland.

The authors analysed a number of determinants (especially economic, social and cultural ones) that are important in the process of an effective dealing with a social exclusion, supporting integration and even an implementation of the education of Romani children. Bad financial situation and a cultural diversity cause integrative problems of the Romani in Polish society, as evidenced by the results of the authors’ research.

A sociometric study in Polish–Roma classes showed that Romani students are not accepted by their Polish classmates. However, despite both the educational and integrative difficulties, Romani students are more and more actively involved in a school life.

The chapter likewise incorporates an evaluation of the governmental programme aiming at equalisation of knowledge levels and opportunities between Poles and Romani in areas such as education, employment, health, hygiene, housing conditions and the ability to function in a civil society. The education thus became a priority area of the programme and the most important activity that was implemented under the given programme was creation of positions of a Romani assistant and a supporting teacher.

Progress, which has been achieved in Poland over the last dozen or so years as far as organisation of the Romani education is concerned, is indeed enormous. An implementation of the compulsory education by Romani students has become widespread and their attendance at classes is satisfactory. Although the attitude of the majority of Romani parents and their children towards the institution of school has changed, the contact between parents and the school is still limited. Both difficulties in the education and a low level of education of parents stimulate a reduction in educational aspirations on the part of Romani students.

The current condition of the organisation of the Romani education indicates that despite these positive initiatives, the Romani education is now in the early stage of its development and it requires further support and monitoring.

Taking into account the statistical data from 2004, about 12,300 Roma citizens live in Moldova, which represents 0.4% of the total population. Gypsies call themselves Roma in the Romani language of Europe. Given the challenge created by the lack of reliable and accurate data on the Roma population available from existing Moldovan statistics, the United Nations Development Program in Moldova initiated, in 2005, the first quantitative study covering 600 Roma households and 600 non-Roma households in 81 localities. Conducting surveys on settlements occupied predominantly by the Roma population has allowed the follow-up of results that eventually led to highlighting the aspects of life conditions, health and education system of Roma population.

Speaking about the factors that condition migration, family reasons are mentioned most often. Although official statistics do not provide disaggregated data on life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality for Roma, statistical data show that life expectancy, infant mortality, morbidity and other major health indicators in the Republic of Moldova (as in other countries in the region) are substantial more precarious for the Roma than for the majority of the population. School education is an important aspect in terms of both school attendance and learning outcomes, as the chance of success in life is generally higher with a higher education level. Qualitative education implies not only inclusion in the educational system, but also family participation in socialisation and support for early integration of children.

This paper delineates the proprietary contest developed around a highly valued prestige item: a silver roofed tankard owned by a Romanian, Gabor Roma man.

The author applies “methodological fetishism” (Appadurai, 1986, p. 5), the perspective of things-in-motion, as well as the biographic method to interpret data collected during 31.5 months of multi-sited anthropological fieldwork carried out in the Transylvanian Gabor and Cărhar Roma groups.

As the tankard in question crossed the borders of three Transylvanian Roma groups, and thus went through the processes of de- and re-contextualization three times, it is characterized by a transethnic/transcultural biography. This paper pays special attention to the agency associated with the tankard (the social and economic practices, processes and emotions it caused or influenced), the transformations concerning its symbolic properties, and its movement between various social contexts and value regimes. Furthermore, it examines how the analysis of these issues contributes to a deeper understanding of prestige relations and consumption, morality and business ethics, and measures of success in two Transylvanian Roma groups.

This paper reveals how subjects create, manipulate, and represent their identities, and social and economic differences through the construction of commodity biographies and ownership histories interpreted as symbolic pantheons. By combining the terms of Marcus (1995) and Fowles (2006), it argues that analyses based on multi-sited fieldwork focusing on commodities crossing cultural or social boundaries, and their transnational/transcultural biographies, should be defined as multi-sited commodity ethnographies.

Diversity is the wealth of Montenegro. It is a comparative advantage that provides an exceptional opportunity for understanding and tolerance. It encourages citizens to dialogue, get to know each other and get closer and not to misunderstand, confront and divide society. Any attempt to explore and consider the position of the minority national and ethnic groups in a given social reality is a very specific problem. The best indicator of democracy and tolerance achieved by the social system in a country is the attitude towards its minorities. It is reflected in the majority population's ability to exist under the conditions of tolerating and respecting minorities and their rights. In that sense, the question of the actual (not only constitutional) position of the minorities is an issue of the majority community just as it is a specific mirror of its achieved level of tolerance, emancipation and culture of living. It is especially interesting to explore those national and ethnic minorities with no ‘mother country’, that is, ‘no one to stand up for them’. The Roma population is one of these. It should be kept in mind that its position, regardless of the state in question, is complex and faces various problems.

In order to significantly improve the overall position of the Roma population in Montenegro, it is necessary to improve the socio-economic status of this group. The best way to do such a thing is through the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, as well as the promotion of Roma's identity and cultural heritage. The poor socio-economic status of Roma in Montenegro is a consequence of their inability to be employed. They are not employed because they are not formally educated or do not have a significant level of institutional education. So it is a vicious circle in which the Roma are spinning unsuccessfully to resolve, at least somewhat decently, their socio-economic position. The educational situation of the Roma population in Montenegro is significantly better at the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, but still not nearly satisfactory in the way how that members of this population successfully participate in finding and getting a job. Therefore, through mutual communication between Roma and other social actors in Montenegro, it is necessary to raise awareness and strengthen the capacity of Roma about the importance of education and the connection of this segment of society with their employment. This leads to the improvement of the overall position of the Roma population in Montenegrin society, as well as the building of an inclusive and open society, a society of equality and justice and equal opportunities for all residents to access educational institutions at various levels and other legal and social structures.