Promoting Social Justice and Enhancing Educational Success: Suggestions from Twenty Educationally Successful Roma in Greece

In Greece, Roma pupils often experience segregation through educational settings, high dropout rates, low performance outcomes, and higher levels of non-completion when compared to their Greek (non-Roma) peers. However, a small minority do stay in school and proceed to higher education. This paper draws on a set of in-depth interviews with twenty Greek Roma who entered higher education ‘despite the odds’ and examines what these participants advocate, in order to support the educational progression of the Roma in Greece. The participants outline a series of interventions that they believe can challenge some of the economic, cultural, and associational injustices experienced by the Roma. They call for a need to improve educational provision for the Roma in Greece, in order to enhance their educational success.