Nafsika Alexiadou & Anders Norberg
This recently published article -- a part of European Education's 2017 special issue (Vol 49, Issue 1) on "A Decade of Roma Inclusion" edited by Christian Brüggemann & Eben Friedman -- analyzes the Swedish Strategy for Roma Inclusion. Drawing on interviews and documentary materials produced around the Strategy by official sources and Roma organizations, the authors describe its background, rationale,
and evolution, as well as the rifts it has revealed around the issues of
minority representation and the framing of inclusion. The article describes the Strategy
as a framework for education policy, aligned with the European Framework for
Roma integration, and discuss it in relation to issues of representation,
inclusion, and policy formation. IT argue that, at the discursive level, the
Strategy has engaged positively with the politics of Roma inclusion and has
introduced a number of new issues in the public debate. However, at the same
time it has given rise to policy tensions that reflect inadequate
representation of and discussions with Roma stakeholders. For policy makers
this has presented opportunities to rethink the design of the Strategy and to opt
for an open final text that allows for a more versatile and flexible set of
policy options to emerge at the local level.
