School, Languages and Power in Pretend Play of Romani Children

This text explores different language ideologies and different ideologies of childhood and socialization among Romani parents and local teachers of Romani children. It also makes some notes on different modes of learning that the children can come across both inside and outside the school environment. All these features can be linked with the child-structured pretend play with school instruction as the main topic, as I observed it during my stays in one segregated Romani settlement in Eastern Slovakia. Among other functions, this play creates a natural niche of using Slovak, a language of instruction and the second language of children in Gav, which is not used in home environment of the children. I will show that, despite the teachers seeing the Romani settlement as a non-stimulating environment, the children learn many things in many different patterns. Nevertheless, the text presents the settlement and the school not as two different worlds, but as places naturally linked together through child agency.