EDUCATION OF ISLAMIC-MINORITY CHILDREN IN THE BALKANS

Appendix 1

EDUCATION OF ISLAMIC-MINORITY CHILDREN IN THE BALKANS. OVERCOMING THE CULTURAL GAP

Sociological Survey – Theoretical Model

BASIC TASK OF THE SURVEY: To provide material for working out diagnostic instruments for identifying the specific educational needs of minority children in Bulgaria. The initial assumption is that the problems of the minority children at school vary, depending on ethnic and religious identity, as well as on the concrete school environment.

THE PROBLEM: It is obvious that the contemporary Bulgarian school is characterized by considerable cultural diversity in ethnic and religious aspect. However, as a whole the educational system is ethnocentric (oriented towards the ethnic Bulgarian students), naively (unself-reflectively) modern, insensitive to the specific cultural problems of students.

To what extent are the curricula and the organization of the training process at primary school effective with regard of the specific cultural needs of the students?

Is it possible to undertake concrete, conforming to the specific conditions at every school, and at every class, steps towards making education untercultural, i.e. sensitive to cultural difference and giving equal opportunities for development and success to children with different cultural identities?

OBJECTIVE OF THE SURVEY: To identify the points of conflict between the present educational system and the cultural differences in a way that is concrete enough as to make possible an adequate selection of the necessary specific techniques of intercultural education.

OBJECT OF THE SURVEY: Students of the IV grade of typologically selected schools from the regions of Shumen and Sliven. The selection of the schools is based on three factors: ethnicity, religion and school environment of the students. The orientation of the survey to students of the IV grade (about 11 years old) is conditioned by the conviction that at primary school the opportunities are best for starting intercultural training because of the age of the children (ethnocentrism is not fixed too much yet) and the specific relationship between teacher and students (each class works almost exclusively with one teacher, which gives opportunities for a more comprehensive and systematic work in this respect).

The schools selected are:

In Sliven (South-East of Bulgaria)

School No 1 – typical urban school with Bulgarian and Roma-Christian children.

School No 6 - urban minority school (ghetto type ) – Roma Christian and Roma-Moslem children

Primary school in the village of Novachevo (near Sliven, with exclusively Turkish population)

In Shumen (North-East of Bulgaria)

School “Trayko Simeonov” - urban mixed school (Bulgarian and Turkish children)

School “Ivan Vazov” - urban minority school (Roma-Moslem and Turkish children, with some Bulgarians too)

Primary school in the village of Malomir (near Shumen, with exclusively Pomak, i.e. Bulgarian-Moslem population)

Altogether 304 respondents

SUBJECT OF THE SURVEY: The cultural attitudes and values of the students. The parameters along which cultural differences are to be identified by the questionnaire are selected among the whole set of cultural parameters, which are assumed to be relevant to intercultural education at Bulgarian schools. The latter are represented in Table 1. The former are: attitude to school; world view; claims for specific cultural presence in the school curricula; level of coping with the school tasks; level of communication capacities.

METHOD OF RESEARCH:

Non-standardized interview with the teachers of the classes where the survey is to be conducted. The aim of the interview is to collect data about the professional capacities of the teachers, who work with minority children, as well as to test some assumptions about the specific problems of minority children at school and about the ability if the children, depending on their age, to understand and answer adequately the questions.
Survey with classes, where minority children study, from 6 schools.

HYPOTHESES:

there are three types of cultural conflict zones in the education of minority children, which are determined by: differences between traditional and modern cultural patterns; discriminational attitudes; communicational uncommensurabilities
the conflict zones are influenced by the concrete configuration of socio-cultural factors in the respective case (school, class)
as a result of this, the cultural differences among the concrete groups (schools, classes) of students with minority representation are greater and more meaningful with regard of educational methodology, than the differences among the ethnic and/or religious categories of students

EXPECTED PRACTICAL RESULTS: Empirical basis for working out a “diagnostical instrument” in the form of a questionnaire, by which the teacher will be able to identify the problematic elements in the relationship between his/her students and the educational system and, as a result, will be able to select the appropriate educational materials from a larger resource package, in order to work effectively for achieving the goals of intercultural education in the respective case.

TABLE 1

* Fields of manifes- * tation * Factors *	Behavioral attitudes	Curricula	Social relationships
Opposition “Traditional – Modern Culture”	Freedom, individual responsibility, loyalty to society as a whole vs group solidarity Collectiovism (lack of competitiveness, conformism) Orientation towards the future vs orientation towards the present Institutional authority vs traditional (personal) authority Priority of rules vs priority of traditions and personal relations	No correspondence between the teaching content and the students own life-project Problematic value of modern science	“Intransparency” of the social environment
Discrimination	Етhnocentrism, prejudice, distrust towards society as a whole, contradiction between the ethnic and religious values of the different communities.	No presence of the minorities in the curricula (no materials on their history, cultural traits, traditions etc.)	Problematic relations with the Other as: the other students the teachers school as institution society as a whole (as background of school life)
Communicational incommensurabilities	“Closed” behavior towards the teachers and school as a whole	Insufficient competence in the language of teaching (Bulgarian) Contrast between the style of communication at school (texts, teachers’ speech) and the communication style in the student’s own cultural environment	Insufficient competence to communicate at the level of “high culture”

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