Cultural misconceptions about Roma minorities in teacher trainees

Abstract

Cultural misconceptions about Roma minorities are intertwined with prejudices; therefore, understanding and dismantling these can be key to foster tolerance. Textbooks in Hungary do not contribute to dispelling these misconceptions, and the media also tends to reinforce these; thus, appropriate training of teacher trainees seems to be important. The aim of this research was to explore the acceptance of cultural misconceptions about Roma minorities and the relationship between cultural misconceptions and prejudices among teacher trainees. Our survey involved 319 teacher trainees. We used Likert scales to assess the acceptance of cultural misconceptions and discriminatory situations, and some other scales to measure tolerance (social distance, social dominance orientation, sympathy). Our results reveal a “romantic” image of the Roma minorities among teacher trainees in which traditional family values are in the centre. Respondents perceive the different culture of the Roma minorities as the supreme source of social tensions. Correlations were found between statements about cultural misconceptions/discriminatory situations and tolerance scales which confirm that some of these statements about cultural misconceptions/discriminatory situations may also be used as indicators of intolerance. Cultural misconceptions about Roma minorities may provide a direct point of intervention in various training courses (e.g., teacher training, healthcare, law enforcement); for which the statements used in this work may serve as a starting point.