41 / 2015

Andreja Barle Lakota, Miran Komac

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: The Case of the Roma Ethnic Minority in Slovenia

ABSTRACT
Slovenia has a rather comprehensive legal framework and specific implementing policies to regulate Roma issues. Nevertheless, the improvement of the standard of living of the Roma can only be measured in incremental units. A similar finding also applies to education. So, what went wrong? Roma pupils enter primary school without the adequate prior knowledge required in Slovene schools. Thus, they simultaneously need to fill their educational gaps and gain new knowledge. A solution thereto is to be provided by the school. The latter is thus burdened with excessive responsibility and obligations as regards ensuring the development of the Roma minority, i.e. it is entrusted with tasks it is unable to perform. The basic hypothesis of this paper is that preschool education and various forms of non-formal education implemented (if possible) in Roma settlements lead to an increase in the human and social capital of the members of the Roma ethnic minority.
KEY WORDS: Roma ethnic minority, education, human and social capital

41 / 2015

Andreja Barle Lakota, Miran Komac

Breaking the Glass Ceiling: The Case of the Roma Ethnic Minority in Slovenia

ABSTRACT
Slovenia has a rather comprehensive legal framework and specific implementing policies to regulate Roma issues. Nevertheless, the improvement of the standard of living of the Roma can only be measured in incremental units. A similar finding also applies to education. So, what went wrong? Roma pupils enter primary school without the adequate prior knowledge required in Slovene schools. Thus, they simultaneously need to fill their educational gaps and gain new knowledge. A solution thereto is to be provided by the school. The latter is thus burdened with excessive responsibility and obligations as regards ensuring the development of the Roma minority, i.e. it is entrusted with tasks it is unable to perform. The basic hypothesis of this paper is that preschool education and various forms of non-formal education implemented (if possible) in Roma settlements lead to an increase in the human and social capital of the members of the Roma ethnic minority.
KEY WORDS: Roma ethnic minority, education, human and social capital

41 / 2015

Andreja Vezovnik

Ex-Yugoslavian Immigrant Workers in Slovenia: Between Balkanization and Victimization

ABSTRACT
This article explores how the identity of immigrant workers (mostly ex-Yugoslavians) in Slovenia is constructed in the Slovenian print media. The article focuses on the interplay of the two main discourses on immigrant workers – Balkanist discourse and victimization discourse. The analysis shows how Balkanist discourse still constructs the immigrant as the other but avoids explicitly negative connotations by framing immigrant workers’ identity within a discourse of victimization. The article explains how this interplay of discourses serves to normalize the immigrant worker in order to make him acceptable to the majoritarian Slovenian society. The article closes by exploring the victimization discourse as a process of desubjectivizing of the immigrant workers and argues that aspects of the victimization discourse reaffirm the long-standing power relations between Western Europe and the Balkans. 
KEY WORDS: immigration, Balkanism, victimization

41 / 2015

Andreja Vezovnik

Ex-Yugoslavian Immigrant Workers in Slovenia: Between Balkanization and Victimization

ABSTRACT
This article explores how the identity of immigrant workers (mostly ex-Yugoslavians) in Slovenia is constructed in the Slovenian print media. The article focuses on the interplay of the two main discourses on immigrant workers – Balkanist discourse and victimization discourse. The analysis shows how Balkanist discourse still constructs the immigrant as the other but avoids explicitly negative connotations by framing immigrant workers’ identity within a discourse of victimization. The article explains how this interplay of discourses serves to normalize the immigrant worker in order to make him acceptable to the majoritarian Slovenian society. The article closes by exploring the victimization discourse as a process of desubjectivizing of the immigrant workers and argues that aspects of the victimization discourse reaffirm the long-standing power relations between Western Europe and the Balkans. 
KEY WORDS: immigration, Balkanism, victimization