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Using socio-cultural research methodology and techniques we will gather data on the presence and access of Roma women and young people on the labor market. Quantitative research (sociological survey, data collection and market research) will result in statistics on problems related to the presence of Roma in the labor market and the kind of work they do (emphasizing gender differences in different positions in the labor market and specific problems of Roma women), but also jobs and trainings accessible for them. Qualitative research (focus groups and ethnographic/anthropological case studies) will disclose experiences and concepts, cognition about work (domestic, unpaid and outside home, wage labor), but also the extent and the way in which knowledge (infused by prejudice) works in the relation between employer (non-Roma) and employee (Roma). Each research will be followed by reports containing recommendations for public policies. These reports contribute to raising awareness of social inequalities in the sphere of work and raising sensitiveness on the necessity of social inclusion among target groups. These reports will be published and sent to public institutions, decision-makers, employers, mass media and civil organizations. Annual reports will contain information on research results and the relation between research and other activities of the project. In this way we hope to build a model of best practice regarding Roma women’s access on labor market. Starting from the second year, the survey and focus group results will be published in our journal, and will be given space in leaflets and posters edited in the second year of the project. Certain information (even if they are not the final results of the survey and focus group interviews from the first year) will be used in the teaching materials of the trainings sessions. During the survey, focus group and qualitative ethnographic/anthropological fieldwork, we will inform our target groups about the services provided by the project. During these activities direct contact is established between the staff of the project and target groups. In communities from Timis county these contacts will be used also for informing target groups about the services provided by the organizations involved into the project. By the means of our the research methodology (example the focus groups conducted within mixed groups, data collection about available jobs) we will also contribute to the activities of mediating between employers and persons looking for jobs. Activities for assuring the social inclusion of Roma in Timisoara start from the third month of the first year and continue in the next years. The final results of the survey will be accessible starting from the tenth month, and the results of the focus group interviews from the twelfth. Thus the data gathered using these research methods in the first year of the project will have their impact on activities of social inclusion especially from the second year. Action plans serving social inclusion in the second and third years will be elaborated also on the base of the research results of the first year.
The survey
The sociological survey administers questionnaires on a population comprising several categories of people (working, jobless, unemployed, housekeepers, etc). The survey does not work on a representative sample in the sense that the results will not speak about, for example, the percentage of employed Roma and so on. Rather the survey is concerned with disclosing several categories of people in their relation to work (a certain number of persons in each occupational category) and with identifying the characteristics of the people and their work. Thus, the sociological survey enables us to describe, for example, the situation of the employed Roma or housekeepers, etc., and based on these descriptions to elaborate methodologies for action aiming the betterment of their situation on the labor market. The sociological survey targets Roma communities from Cluj, Timişoara, Iaşi and Bucharest. In addition, it administers the questionnaire in four villages in the vicinity of these towns. Interviewers are selected from the studied communities. The sample includes 1200 persons. The data gathered through the survey comprises information on the social, occupational, and material status of the Roma; their educational and work history; sources of income and access to different types of jobs; survival strategies in nuclear and extended families; division of labor according to gender and age; access to information and the circulation of these information in the community; problems regarding different aspects of work such as finding employment, being hired, remuneration, being fired, etc.; experiences of discrimination (based on gender, ethnicity, age); the expectations of people regarding the work they would like to do; traditional occupations and their daily practice; ideas about gender in relation with paid and unpaid work; the division of labor at the workplace according to ethnicity, gender and age; the need for activities of accompanying for mothers with children who want to work.
Focus groups
Through the first year’s focus groups we will find out how Roma women and young men looking for employment think about their chances in getting a job, about their experiences in the domain of work (including discrimination and integration). We will have data also on how employers think about Roma candidates for a workplace. The focus groups aims to disclose the relation between these two categories of people. Through the focus groups from the third year we will gather feed-back on the impact of the project on employers and on persons who have searched and found a job (participants will be selected also from the latter group, from the persons who have worked during the whole project and who have been the beneficiaries of services provided to them). Group interviews will be made in Cluj and Timisoara. These are led by an anthropologist and a psychologist.
Collecting data about labor market
The information about available employment and training courses gathered continuously (from the third month of the project in the western region) will be disseminated immediately and systematically to the target groups. Placement on courses and the mediation between employers and employees are based on this information. This activity gives the opportunity for contacting potential employers and maintaining relationship with them throughout the whole project, being an important part of the mediation. That is why it is not just an activity of collecting data but also one of informing (by which information about the project and its services are provided to employers and local providers of professional training courses). The data collected are systematized in a data base, which is permanently refreshed and will be accessible from the seat of the Roma Women’s Association “For Our Children”, and from the webpage of the project.
Qualitative Community Studies
The qualitative research from the second year of the project will bring to light experiences and conceptions related to work (the extra-domestic and domestic), and also the level of knowledge and methods (impregnated with prejudices) mutual relationship between the employer (non-Roma) and employee (Roma). Through the research information is collected about aspects of presence and access to employment, which helps to improvement and processes of the information, mediation, accompaniment and investment among target groups activities (especially Roma communities, including women and young Roma people).
Qualitative research includes two months of training (in December 2009 and January 2010) time in which the research plan be developed, the interview guide and the participatory observation guide based on which the field operators will be prepared in advance, by the coordinator, how to conduct they research work between February and April 2010. Field work will take place in the cities of Cluj and Timisoara in Roma communities. 5 fieldworkers will participate in these activities and the research coordinator. It includes the implementation of 70 recorded narrative interviews and participatory observation at the home of the interviewees, on the occasion of the respondents at work, outside their homes, and at social events. The recorded interviews will be transcribed in March, April, May. In June, on the base of the transcribed interviews and observations notes, the processing of the material will begin, following that in July 2010 to establish a research report with recommendations for the activities of social inclusion and public policies for Roma.
