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The chapter provides information about the second largest ethnic minority in Romania, Roma people, and the way the Romanian educational system is open to inclusion. Based on factual data about number, groups and legal status, the chapter presents some peculiarities regarding the culture and language, social situation and the level of education. The main part of the presentation is focused on the educational issues, such as information about Romanian educational system and educational attainment of the Roma from preschool till tertiary education and lifelong learning programs. The last part include information about policies and support programs for Roma education and a short analysis of good practice initiatives within Romanian cultural and educational space.

This chapter focuses on brokerage in the prestige economy of the Gabor Roma ethnic subgroup in Romania. It argues that the necessity of the brokers’ employment as well as their economic importance comes from the significant uncertainty characterising the prestige-object transactions, that is, these brokers are occasional entrepreneurs specialised in risk management. The theoretical purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate that brokers and goods mediated by them can be associated with more than one socially constructed transactional identity (cultural, political, economic, etc.) at the same time. It also aims to highlight the shifting nature of these identities – they are not constant and context-free qualities, but highly context-sensitive social constructions that can appear in various combinations.

This paper aims to identify the successful strategies, through literature review, to be used in Kosovo to help integrate the Roma community and to reduce the community’s overall social exclusion. This paper further examines the gaps between strategies and implementation results in reducing the social exclusion of the Roma through experiences of other European countries with similar political and socio-economic history as Kosovo.

This paper uses a literature review and further examines the experiences of other European countries, with similar political and socio-economic history as Kosovo and their strategies in eliminating the social exclusion for Roma communities. A holistic socio-ecological approach is used as a recommended model to be used for the development of a strategy to reduce social exclusion among Roma Communities in Kosovo.

The social and economic implications are extremely negative for countries with large Roma minorities, such as Western Balkan countries and the European Union (EU) as a whole. Roma inclusion policies both in the EU and Western Balkans contain considerable flaws and tend to ignore the variables of discrimination and antigypsyism. There is an obvious need to act more urgently to prevent the exclusion of Roma and to create strategies for better inclusion. Overall, gaps seem to remain between the strategies and implementation results.

This paper aims to add to the existing literature about the ongoing efforts of the international development assistance community and communities in the developing world. This paper also aims to show the gaps in ongoing efforts and provide generic recommendations that may be applicable in many diverse situations with the aim of leading communities toward a self-sufficient sustainable future.

The Kosovo anti-discrimination law protects all individuals from discrimination; however, in practice, studies show that the Roma exclusion is very high in Kosovo. This paper stands among the first to analyze comparative literature and policy reviews.

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that those involved in cultural heritage preservation efforts must look more critically at how preconceived notions of “history” and “tradition” affect both the design and outcomes of preservation efforts. This paper also adds to the limited library and information science (LIS) discourse on the problematic nature of significance as it relates to selecting aspects of cultural heritage for preservation, which is of particular importance to LIS practitioners as they work to help others capture, preserve and represent their traditional knowledge and ways of life.

The argument is based on research carried out in rural Romania in the summer of 2007. Faculty from Ball State University with students from several US universities collected qualitative data using ethnographic methods for an ongoing historic preservation effort in the community of Viscri. In addition to the community case study, the LIS literature on the problem of assigning significance to cultural objects for preservation is reviewed.

Cultural preservation efforts tend to rely on legitimate lay understandings of history, tradition and culture that, in turn, inform social life in a community. Such limited understandings influence the program choices and resource allocations made in cultural preservation efforts. It also tends to finesse the role the elite and powerful have over these programs. Viscri provides a real‐world example that illustrates some lessons to be learned about how the LIS community thinks about tradition and modernity and the relationship both have to cultural heritage preservation.

The argument rests on a single community study. However, a literature review and an in‐depth analysis of a particular historical preservation effort strengthen the paper's argument.

In order for preservation efforts to more equitably preserve cultural heritage, the LIS community has to ask more analytic questions about what history and tradition are in the context of the communities it serves. Those involved in cultural preservation efforts must bring to their work an awareness of the consequences of selecting certain aspects of culture and heritage over others have for preservation efforts.

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.

Roma form the largest ethnic group in Europe. Currently, between 10 and 12 million Roma live in Europe, 6 million of which live in the European Union.

In this chapter, the authors analyze the socioeconomic and health problems faced by the Roma population, their causes and the barriers to Roma access to adequate medical care.

Roma population is generally younger than the general population, but with a lower life expectancy, due to poor living conditions and the increased prevalence of chronic and acute diseases. There are numerous barriers to accessing medical services by the Roma patients, such as language, low education, lack of information, discrimination in medical institutions, lack of medical insurance or identity documents and the relationship with medical staff.

Health mediators represent the link between communities and medical staff, with the role of reducing the negative consequences of the language barrier, sociocultural differences and tensions between ethnic groups.

The authors also present the results of a study conducted in Romania that aimed to analyze the role of health mediators as intercultural facilitators who contribute to increasing the quality of medical care provided to Roma patients and their ability to respond culturally appropriate to the health needs of the Roma patients.

The authors conclude that the medical staff has an ethical obligation to provide culturally sensitive medical care, since the ethnic origin, the level of education, the language proficiency and the cultural values of the patients are essential for a functional doctor–patient relationship. The activity of the health mediators is an important element in the health policies aimed at increasing the cultural competence of the medical staff and improving the medical care provided to the Roma population.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings from a field study in Viscri, a village in Transylvania, Romania, to investigate the current state of information and communication technology (ICT) development in the village.

Researchers interviewed villagers in May 2007. Ethnographic methods were used to collect data and to assess villagers' information needs. The information landscape in Viscri is presented and analyzed in local and national contexts. The national policies shaping Romania's emerging information society are discussed and literature on the impact of ICT development at the community level is also reviewed.

Romania's ICT policy goal of universal access needs to be better targeted. In Viscri, few adults showed interest in learning about or using computers. However, villagers understood that a good education that included computer education was necessary to assure better economic futures for their children. In light of the demographics, social conditions and cultural beliefs in Viscri, the most appropriate access point for ICT initiatives there should be programs aimed at school‐aged children.

The paper describes and discusses the information needs of one village. Further field investigation at the community level is necessary to discern the relevance of the findings to other villages both in Romania and elsewhere.

Further research, especially in the most underserved communities, will help to identify ways in which the information society and related policies can be more equitably implemented in Romania. What is learned in Romania can have implications for ICT development policy elsewhere.

The paper assesses critically the rhetoric of universal access. If universal access is going to remain an ICT policy goal, more research is needed at the community level in order to ensure that policy emphasis on access for all actually translates into equitable, meaningful ICT access for underserved communities.

This paper aims to compare the health status of Roma in Europe and Aborigines in Australia, examining access to health care (both primary and long‐term), administrative and communication problems, environmental risks associated with location of residences, women's health, substance abuse and mental health.

The paper discusses issues generated by cultural practices by both health care providers and the target groups.

Both Roma and Australian Aborigines have significantly poorer health status than the majority of the societies they are embedded in, and are clearly amongst the most disadvantaged members of their respective societies. Nevertheless, affirmative action programs for Aboriginal people over the last 40 years have produced some significant changes, with Aboriginal doctors and nurses, and culturally appropriate service provision being found in many areas.

Although there are considerable similarities between the health status and situation of Romanies and Australian Aborigines, clearly, there are also substantive differences. The paper suggests possible culturally appropriate service provision for Roma, based on Australian Aboriginal experiences and models.