Attitudes to the language and identity of Romanian Roma migrants in a UK school setting

Drawing on participant observation, interviews, and document analysis, we discuss teachers’ narratives about the language and identity of Roma pupils and compare them with those of the pupils themselves. We explore the sources of information that shape teachers’ dispositions, category conflation (of Roma with ‘Gypsies/Travellers’) and lack of information on sociolinguistic repertoires. We discuss the risks of targeted, scripted institutional narratives on Roma and show that in the case under consideration they are likely to have contributed to a disparity between teachers’ perception of Roma, and the views that Roma pupils present drawing on their own experiences.