Friendship formation among Roma and non-Roma students in Hungary

Absztrakt (kivonat)

Friendship formation and particularly friendship segregation, among Roma and non-Roma students participating in secondary education, can influence their scholastic performance and their life chances to a certain extent. Therefore it is very important to explore what are the main factors that can contribute to this situation. Several previous studies aimed to examine the different forms of segregation of Roma and non-Roma students in the Hungarian education system, with respect to their disproportionate distribution within and between schools. However there is little about their segregation within classes, which is an important field for research if the goal is the enhancement of the effectiveness of integrated education. Accordingly, my main focus is to examine whether there is friendship segregation between Roma and non-Roma students in integrated classrooms, and if so, how economic and social background correlates with it. In addition, to attain a more complex view of the problem, I am taking a look at the proportion of minority students in a given classroom, because it can influence the level of integration in the community. To control for the effect of ethnicity I am also analyzing the contribution of several other factors such as, gender, the mother’s highest level of education and type of training program. The results show that ethnicity is the most dominant factor of friendship formation, but its salience can be limited by other factors, such as the proportion of minority students in the given classroom. My research is based on a national network panel study conducted by RECENS (OTKA project, no. K 81336). (Special thanks for the lot of help to:the members of the Research Center for Educational and Network Studies, especially to Néray Bálint and dr. Takács Károly.)