Conference Program

During recent years, for the first time in Icelandic history, a relatively stable and conspicuous community of Roma (mostly from Romania) has formed in Reykjavík, the capital area. This paper presents the materials that emerged from the research project RomÍs: History and ethnography of Roma people in Iceland. In particular, it focuses on the results of an investigation conducted among personnel at Reykjavík elementary schools in the period 2022-24.

Together with social workers, the personnel of Reykjavík's schools represented the main point of contact between the newly emerged Roma community and Icelandic institutions. The paper explores the process of (gradual) “discovery” of the Roma pupils in Icelandic classrooms. It also traces the dynamics that framed the encounter between teachers and school personnel, on the one hand, and Roma pupils and their families, on the other. It will be argued that Roma built their approaches with Icelandic schools on their previous experience with other non-Roma institutions (in Romania and other countries of migration). Icelandic teachers and other professionals, instead, had no previous experience of encounter with Roma and felt lacking in knowledge and know-how to approach Roma pupils and families properly.

While fearing reproducing in Icelandic schools the inequalities and discrimination that target most Roma in Europe, many Icelandic teachers and professionals involved in the reception of Roma pupils and families manifested a mix of curiosity and unease towards what they perceived a Roma specific social, economic, and cultural background. In doing so, they mirrored stereotypical images existing in Icelandic collective imagery, which portray Roma as exotic, fascinating but also unsettling Others. Some also got in contact with bluntly negative stereotypes, which they accessed not only through mass and social media, but also through direct interactions with migrants and foreign institutions, whose “indoctrination” (cfr. Zembylas, 2022) on Roma-related issues risked poisoning educational settings.

So far, contrary to most European countries (cfr. Lauritzen and Nodeland, 2018), Roma in Iceland are not faced with the reproduction of inequalities in educational settings, neither at the hands of school personnel nor of non-Roma pupils. This is also because teachers and professionals involved in the reception of Roma children and families cultivated a critical, reflexive stance towards their own assumptions and practices. This situation, however, is fragile as anti-Gypsyism might find fertile soil to grow. This paper thus reflects on the reasons behind the Icelandic peculiarity, as well as on the ever-present risk that educational settings end up mirroring and socialising societal distinctions, hierarchies, and racialization processes.

Education in Relational, Affective and Sexual Life (EVRAS) occupies a central place in educational policies aimed at promoting the sexual health of children and young people in French-speaking Belgium. Beyond its explicit goals, however, EVRAS also constitutes a public action instrument through which normativities of gender and sexuality are formulated, materialized, and transmitted. In light of this, this contribution offers a theorical perspective examining how EVRAS participates in the processes of gender political socialization among students, the ways in which young people internalize a critical relationship to gender relations and learn, negotiate, or contest the power structures inherent in them. Drawing on the concept of the inequality regime (Acker, 2006) – an analytical approach to the interrelated practices and meanings that sustain gender, class, and other social relations within organizations – this review also considers the links between inequalities present in the school institution and students’ gender political socialization.

The first part of the presentation discusses the foundations of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), defined by UNESCO (2018) as “a curriculum-based process of teaching and learning about the cognitive, emotional, physical and social aspects of sexuality.” This definition will be contrasted with the orientations specific to the French-speaking Belgian context, focusing on the gender and sexuality normativities prescribed in EVRAS policy texts. This section will also address the controversies surrounding EVRAS, particularly opposition expressed by some parents who view it as a threat to their educational authority or to the values they wish to transmit. These reactions illustrate the plurality of spheres contributing to the gender socialization of young people and shed light on conflicts of legitimacy between family and school.

The second part examines how, in a context where EVRAS crystallizes tensions between familial prescriptions, school expectations, and broader social norms, gender socialization unfolds across its various spheres: family, school, peer groups, and youth sociability networks. Particular attention will be paid to individuals’ agency in relation to norms, as well as to the school context according to schools’ inequality regimes, in order to illuminate the effects of EVRAS on the gender political socialization of young people. The aim is to understand the conditions under which EVRAS may support the emergence of a critical stance toward gender relations or, conversely, contribute to the reproduction of gendered norms already present in young people's social environments. The concepts of conscientization (understanding the world) and conflictualization (taking a stand) (Druez & Durand, 2023) will provide a theoretical contribution for analysing how different postures shape young people’s relationship to gender inequalities.

When considering the relationship between schooling and politics, sociologists, from Durkheim to Bourdieu, have seen the school as an institution that socializes students to the norms, values, and hierarchies of society, thereby ensuring the stability of the social order (Durkheim, 1966/1922, 2012/1902; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970).

However, despite the growing importance of education in Western societies, we cannot ignore the rise of protest, social conflict, and defiance against the state (Roudet, 2012; Siblot, 2015; Sallenave, 2019). This context invites us to revisit the question of political socialization in schools. Based on ongoing ethnographic research, combining observation and interviews in two socially differentiated schools in French-speaking Belgium, I aim to show how the educational institution can foster both adherence to and resistance against the educational order. Through the concept of symbolic recycling (Lignier & Pagis, 2017), these dispositions can extend to the broader social order.

Drawing on the works of Bourdieu (1970, 1977, 1982) and Willis (1977), as well as recent literature investigating political socialization in a broader context (Sapiro, 2004; Bargel & Darmon, 2017; Boughaba et al., 2018; Barrault-Stella et al., 2020; Haegel, 2020), I argue that the outcomes of the school’s socializing function depend on students' subjective schooling experiences. These experiences are differentiated by a number of factors such as class, gender and race. The diversity of unequal experiences produces a diversity of relationships to school and to its principles of vision and division structuring both the academic and the broader social world.

In this article, I want to discuss how I grappled with listening as an ethical relational practice in my research on the belonging of youth of color at an urban Dutch pre-vocational secondary education school. As an immigrant researcher of color, I noticed how my ability to receive the experiences of students in my research was shaped by my own implicit expectations, such as concerning their future aspirations. Drawing on the insights of Anastas and colleagues (2025), I approach listening in my research an instrument for caring for and witnessing the diverse stories of youth of color that are often silenced by dominant power structures. This is particularly important for addressing our responsibility as researchers in challenging unethical and extractive research practices that seek ownership. I illustrate through two guiding themes and empirical examples how I aimed to engage in the work of 1: listening beyond damage and 2: listening to wisdom in my research. First, by paying attention not only to the stories of pain and discrimination but also to experiences of belonging and joy in school, I looked for ways of listening beyond damage, following Eve Tuck (2009), to understand the complexity of how youth of color experience schooling. Having previously researched racism and discrimination experiences of youth in education, shifting my orientation towards stories and feelings of belonging in school has challenged but also expanded my capacity to listen in ways I was not prepared for. Second, listening to the wisdom meant witnessing how the youth engaged in a critical analysis of the dehumanization and belonging they experienced across different schools, and openness to the ways they envisioned their professional futures, even when these did not align with societal notions of success. Overall, this work seeks to expand conversation on ethical and caring ways of doing qualitative research through otherwise listening of the layered and diverse stories of youth in contexts of educational and systemic inequities.

Bio: F. Zehra Çolak is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer working on educational inequities and youth belonging. Her research lies at the intersection of sociology, education, and psychology and draws on the insights of critical theories to trace how justice-oriented pedagogies and belonging emerge as situated practices across urban school classrooms and community-based spaces. Through collaborative and participatory research, her work explores alternative ways of engaging with communities and youth marginalized by dominant power structures.

Institution: Utrecht University, Department of Education

Email: f.z.colak@uu.nl

Based on the results of a collective, multi-site, and multi-phase fieldwork conducted in some of Brussels' most disadvantaged neighborhoods, involving nearly one hundred young people (aged 18-30), mainly from lower social classes and primarily of second-generation immigrant backgrounds (mainly Turkish, Moroccan, Congolese), this presentation aims to contribute to debates about how young people from urban lower classes are politically socialized within the school environment, as well as their so-called political passivity. Research in political and social sciences on political socialization—particularly related to institutional and electoral forms of politics—indicates that political engagement tends to increase with higher levels of education and qualifications (Evans, Stubager & Langsather 2022, Kohn 2018; Gozzo & Sampugnara 2016). Specifically, within schools, social inequalities affect access to activities like serving as class representatives or participating in school events on societal issues, which foster political involvement (Hoskins, Janmaat & Melis 2017). Overall, schools and citizenship courses typically involve students in politics only minimally and often reinforce existing inequalities (Percheron 1984; Douniès 2019). However, beyond phenomena such as the political dispossession of lower-class youth from activities related to institutional politics—especially as demonstrated by quantitative research—there is a resurgence of the French tradition of political socialization (Mayer & Muxel 1993), where socialization encompasses processes through which youth internalize and adopt social norms, both vertically and horizontally, from various agents like school, family, work, media, and peers (Bargel 2020; Boughaba et al. 2019; Galland 2022; Can 2025; Michiels 2025). In this trend, a Bourdieusian-inspired qualitative sociology has started examining how working-class youth and their families are differently socialized into political participation through their daily but unequal interactions with schools (Barrault-Stella, Bongrand, Hugrée & Siblot 2020; Millet & Thin 2020). Although these studies are both stimulating and promising, the dominant categories within the education field tend to portray young people from working-class backgrounds as more passive than their more privileged counterparts in these processes. Against this trend, this presentation aims to understand the processes of political socialization among young people from working-class backgrounds within the school setting, situating them at the intersection of the school field and what we conceptualize as the 'sub-field'. By combining Bourdieu's theory with cultural and subaltern studies (Willis 1977, Scott 1985 & 1990), our initial argument is that the processes of political socialization of working-class youth within the school field are often studied only by reflecting the effect of the dominant legitimacy, highlighting a rather passive role within the school environment. Second, we introduce the concept of 'sub-field', which is essential for understanding how deprived neighborhoods function as a result of urban segregation dynamics and how they can lead to different forms of consciousness, identification, and political belonging among young people from working-class backgrounds. Third, we demonstrate how 'infra-politics' (Scott 1985 & 2006) which develop among young people from working-class backgrounds and minorities—leaving 'few traces in the public record' (Lazzeri 2012) , and shaped by informal collective relationships and organizations within neighborhoods—come into tension with the logics and categories within the educational institution.