<p class=MsoNormal align=left style='text-align:left;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none'>National Minorities with Respect to Education. The Case of Hungarians</p> <p class=MsoNormal> </p>

Children’s academic achievement and goal orientations: does the ethnic membership matter? / Rendimiento académico y orientación a las metas: el papel de la etnicidad

“…Our results indicated no ethnic differences in achievement between majority and Hungarian minority children living in Banat. These findings complement previous studies conducted in the Romanian context on samples of young adults (e.g., college students) showing that majority and Hungarian minority samples from Transylvania (a geographical region from the centre of the country) have similar levels of achievement (Pasztor, 2006; Wagner, 2012). The similarities in terms of socio-economic status and socialization goals may explain the lack of ethnic differences between majority and minority children living in the same geographical region (Frederickson & Petrides, 2008; Riegle-Crumb & Grodsky, 2010).…”

“…In our study there is no significant difference in children’s families’ socio-economic status between majority and minority children who live in different geographical areas, so these differences could be explained by regional differences in attitude and values between Banat and Moldavia (Gavreliuc, 2011; Smith, Dugan, & Trompenaars, 1996). Further, Hungarian minority group may have higher levels of instrumental attitudes towards educational opportunities, and a higher desire to succeed through education (Pasztor, 2006) compared with their majority peers from Moldavia. Thus, it is possible that Hungarians see better school performance as a strategy to achieve better social positions or job mobility (Pasztor, 2006).…”

“…Cultural-related values may also explain the ethnic differences in goal orientations. Specifically, Hungarian minority children are motivated to show success or to avoid failure because of stronger social pressure (i.e., approval in case of success, disapproval in case of failure) (Pasztor, 2006).…”

“…It is important to note that Eastern European societies have the experience of communist regimes that structured their living conditions, including education, in terms of decreasing the family interest in children’s education (Schwartz & Bardi, 1997). For example, studies conducted in Romania compared the majority with the Hungarian minority group, the largest minority group in this country (representing 6.60% of the total population), and the findings indicated that Hungarian minority and Romanian majority young adults have similar educational attainment and similar levels of achievement (e.g., Pasztor, 2006; Wagner, 2012). However, the few studies carried out on children and adolescent samples have indicated that the Hungarian minority group had lower levels of achievement and lower educational attainment compared with the Romanian majority peers (Bernath & Hatos, 2009; Csata, 2004; Hatos, 2011).…”

Hungarian ethnic minority higher education students in different countries of Central Europe

“…Hungarians have been incorporated into the 7 CEE countries involuntarily after World War I, which left large Hungarian communities under the control of countries they had not been attached to by any form of linguistic, cultural or national identity (Kozma, 2003;Pasztor, 2006). The new majorities, although to a varying extent in different eras, questioned their right for a mother tongue schooling.…”