Comunităţile de romi între educaţia formală și cea informală în perioada regimului comunist. O cercetare de istorie orală

Roma people constitute one of the largest minorities in Romania, but their voices are often absent from the public sphere and academic community, being perceived in negative terms by society or characterized using stereotypes. Reconstructing the history of Roma communities in Romania during the Communist regime seems to be a difficult task, given the fact that, for many years, there was no specific policy directed towards them. Moreover, the contribution of Roma communities in writing their history has been so far limited. Thus, I consider oral history to be a fruitful method of obtaining coherent testimonies in regard to their past. In this article, using the methodology of oral history I will bring to the fore testimonies of Roma men and women emphasizing how they experienced formal education during the Communist years and the lifelong effects on their lives. At the same time, I will analyze the value they place upon skills and knowledge gained from daily experience, outside the realm of the official educational system, in an attempt to show how formal and informal education coexisted within Roma communities in the period under scrutiny and the conclusions we can draw from it. The main aim of this article is to gather and preserve oral history testimonies from a minority whose history is part of the national history and it should be acknowledged as such, while indirectly pinpointing to the relations between minority majority, and trying to inquire if there was unity in diversity.