Based on 165 in-depth, narrative life story interviews with first generation graduates, fieldwork with educational support initiatives and auto-ethnography, this article contributes to the literature on whether and how structural educational inequality can be compensated by talent support programs and whether and how these programs can mitigate the price of education-driven upward social mobility for those Roma and nonRoma Hungarians who come from socio-economically disadvantaged families. Upwardly mobile Roma who achieve social ascension through academic high achievement usually travel vast social distances that straddle class and ethnic context. Many of their mobility trajectories are accompanied by a set of challenges that are unique to college educated, racialized, underrepresented minorities. To overcome these challenges, and to compensate for the inequality of life chances that originate from their socially and economically disadvantaged family backgrounds and from an unequal and highly selective educational system, upwardly mobile minority students join educational support initiatives or organisations. This paper, drawing on the narratives of our research participants, argues that particular types of these initiatives or charitable foundations that deploy an ethnically targeted complex approach, can equip their beneficiaries with different types of capital. Amongst these, one of the most important is the Roma cultural capital. The newly gained capitals are necessary for the first-in-family Roma mentees to get through higher education and succeed in the labour market in the context of the specific challenges they face. These initiatives mitigate the price of social ascension the most. The paper uses a case study of Romaversitas to demonstrate its main findings.
Introduction: The Roma Mentor Project has originally been the experimental educational model of Open Society Institute for multiply disadvantaged Roma and non-Roma youth in the period 2006-2013. Following the closure of OSI’s experimental and alternative educational projects, it has been run further, during the 2016/17 academic year, with the support of the Norway Grant, by the Bhim Rao Association (located in Northern Hungary). Purpose: The Roma Mentor Project aims to establish the pedagogical model of the intellectual Roma friend in order to effectively overcome the sociocultural disadvantages of the Roma and non-Roma children with multiply disadvantages. Methods: Throughout the program a Roma mentor may be a Roma intellectual, artist or well-known figure from the media, whose primary goal is to act as a role model for the Roma children through presenting their own personal and professional life, as well as to become a friend of the mentored. Conclusions: A mentor from Roma origins appears during the project as a Roma intellectual friend in multiply disadvantaged Roma and non-Roma children’s lives, which is especially true considering that the Roma mentor draws tools of socialization from Roma culture.
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