J. Cynthia McDermott

The task of critical pedagogy is to cultivate the skills and sensibilities required to challenge relations of domination. To that end, the role of the teacher is to foster a more equal and democratic society by promoting self-directed and collective learning opportunities. To trust children - that is, to treat them with equal respect and encourage their participation in decision-making - is to prefigure the agency they will exercise as active critical citizens who are empowered to transform society rather than simply reproduce its norms and institutions. From this perspective, educational practices that privilege the teacher’s interests and deny or subordinate the agency of children will constitute a form of domination sometimes referred to as adultism (Flasher, 1978; Tate & Copas, 2003), childism (Pierce & Allen, 1975; Young-Bruehl, 2011), aetonormativity (Nikolajeva, 2010), or misopedy (Rollo, 2016b). Education is adultist when teachers prescribe subjects, curricula, and assessment, thus encouraging obedience and passivity in students and, accordingly, propagating the anti-democratic pathologies of civic conformity and apathy. Adultist pedagogy tends to limit agency to conventional practices of “voting, volunteering, or joining a civic group” (Broom, 2017, p. 3), even though limitations of this sort are arbitrary from the perspective of the child, falling short of empowerment and failing to demonstrate genuine trust or equal respect for children to originate their own democratic practices and institutions.

The education of Roma children presents many challenges throughout the world because of poverty, issues of isolation and discrimination. In many countries where Roma reside, laws exist that prohibit discrimination against this minority group. A variety of conflicting issues exist for Roma children. On one hand, the Roma communities practice cultural norms that are in conflict with a typical schooling environment that requires significant structure and lack of independent support.
Conversely, schools fail to provide appropriate bilingual instruction for Roma children who usually do not speak the local language. In most countries discrimination attitudes create segregated schools and insufficient social services. Many efforts and organizations are in place to positively impact these challenges to provide quality education for all Roma children.