RIRNM Conference 2025

International conference: Minority education in Central and Eastern Europe. Policy aspects, educational equity and cultural recognition

Organizers: 

• ISPMN - Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities
• Institute of Religious Studies
• Babeș-Bolyai University - Hungarian Department of Ethnography and Anthropology
• Babeș-Bolyai University - Department of History in Hungarian
• Babeș-Bolyai University - Faculty of Sociology and Social Work
• Sapientia University
• Department for Interethnic Relations, Government of Romania
• Mentés Másként Pedagógia

Call for applications (deadline: 15^th of August 2025)

Education plays a key role in reproducing social inequalities and group identities and it is also central in understanding minority policy regimes. Our conference focuses on all these three aspects of education of minority students, namely (1) educational policies, (2) educational equity and (3) cultural recognition of minorities through education. Educational policies are part of larger macro-approaches of diversity management and are embedded in minority policy regimes (e.g., institutional settings and discourses shaping interethnic relations). We welcome contributions focusing on this interrelation. How different regimes of minority policies have evolved historically? Why political elites opt for different approaches of diversity management and educational policies? How these approaches were consolidated and how and why they change over time? How current changes in diversity management caused by the decline of liberal democratic framework, weakening of international human and minority rights instruments, ‘illiberal turn’ and securitization of minority policies affect educational policies? In case of minorities, educational equity has a dual meaning. On the one hand, it is connected to distributive aspects and individual opportunities of social mobility. This is how educational equity appears in the literature of international student assessment. Thus, we warmly welcome contributions using PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS databases but also papers relying on other sources (including legal analysis, anthropological, sociological approaches etc.) in analyzing equity aspects of minority education. On the other hand, educational equity is also connected to cultural recognition.

Linguistic background and cultural staff associated with minority groups are rooted in earliest socialization and if an educational system values exclusively the cultural staff (language etc.) of the dominant group, this will inevitably lead to the reproduction of the existing structure of dominance. Minorities might certainly adapt to the linguistic and cultural habitus of the majority, but this is a costly and time-consuming process and an educational system that denies the special educational needs of minorities and externalizes unilaterally costs of cultural adaptation to minority groups cannot be perceived as equitable. Thus, we welcome presentations focusing on different models of cultural recognition in education, ranging from multicultural to intercultural approaches.

We are interested in presentations and papers that discuss the above-mentioned aspects. Scholars connected to different disciplines and approaches concerning are welcome. We accept theoretically and empirically oriented papers, case studies, historical and comparative analyses. We are particularly interested in the following topics:

• Minority policies and minority education in Central and Eastern Europe under the challenges securitization, illiberal turn and right-wing populism;
• Models of minority education under different approaches of diversity management;
• Denominational schools and churches in minority education
• Minority education from human and minority rights perspectives (especially, current trends in international legal documents and monitoring process of FCNM ECRLM and ECRI;
• Minorities and critical perspectives in education (critical pedagogy, democratic education);
• Historical trends in minority policies and minority education, historical junctures, changes and continuities across political regimes;
• International student assessment (PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS) in analyzing and evaluating minority education;
• Inequalities and educational equity between ethnicity and class, individual mobility and cultural recognition;
• Cultural recognition in education: intercultural and multicultural approaches;
• Minority education and language policies/language planning;
• Educational segregation and discrimination;
• Minority perspectives: claim making and “minority educational paradigms”;
• Education of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe;
• Minority education in Romania, Republic of Moldova and beyond;

The conference also welcomes papers and panels devoted to any other aspect of minority education, with special focus on Romania, Republic of Moldova, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, post-Soviet Republics. Comparative investigations and case studies carried out in Western European EU member states, as-well-as other parts of the world that could be relevant in understanding processes affecting minority education are also welcomed. We expect contributions situated within the disciplines of legal studies (minority rights), history, sociology, political science, critical pedagogy, international relations, anthropology, cultural studies and related disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies, based on various methodologies.

The conference will include parallel English and Romanian language section (with translation), keynote speeches, high profile panels, pre-organized round-tables focusing on minority education in Romania and beyond.

Authors are invited to submit an application for participation containing an abstract of their presentation (no more than 200 words), a short professional biography and institutional affiliation. Applications should be sent to confispmn@gmail.com by 15^th of August 2025.