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Myth and reality of gipsy population
HLOUCH, Vojtěch
The coexistence of Czech and Roma communities is beset with numerous issues. Despite the Roma population being a part of the country?s population for centuries, the Roma still find themselves foreigners within the society, perceive the Czech population as hostile and reject even its positive values. The Roma minority blames the Czech society for coldness, hostility and above all discrimination, xenophobia and racism. The Czech population on the other hand upbraids the Roma for noisiness, lack of education, poor work ethics, high unemployment and crime rates, among other things. The theoretical part of the paper is divided according to separate issues relevant for the Roma population in the Czech Republic. The history of the Roma population is presented, since it is considered a notable part of history as well as a significant factor in the current situation. The theoretical part also presents the issues of myth and stereotype, forming a part of any society and affecting its actions from its historical beginnings to the present time. This part of the paper also introduces other key topics relevant for the Roma minority, such as coexistence with the majority society, levels of education, unemployment, crime rates, and socially excluded neighbourhoods. For the practical part of the work, plausible hypotheses were developed for the two objectives described above, to be verified or disproved by practical experiment. H 1: More than half of the representatives of the investigated majority holds the opinion that Roma employment is less than one-third. H 2: The representatives of the investigated majority in more than half amount have personally or vicariously encountered crime perpetrated by Roma. H 3: Representatives of the majority society believes that the most common source of finance for Roma in the investigated localities are social benefits. H 4: Most of the representatives of the investigated majority hold the opinion that Roma are poorly mindful of their children's education. H 5: Most of the majority society in the village of Větřní is of the opinion that better education of Roma has no effect on better employment of Roma. For the practical part of the work, quantitative research employing controlled interview was used to obtain necessary data about the selected locations. The particular sites chosen were: in České Budějovice, the housing estate ?Máj? at the V. Volf Street and its surroundings; in Český Krumlov, the housing estate ?Mír? and the surroundings of the Lipová Street. In the village of Větřní, the research focused on the geographically lower part of the settlement. All three locations are considered socially excluded according to an analysis of socially excluded neighbourhoods. 50 respondents were interviewed in each of České Budějovice and Český Krumlov, and 30 respondents were interviewed in Větřní. The thesis set out to achieve two tasks. The first was to identify the perceptions held by the majority society about the Roma minority in the selected neighbourhoods and about its some of the issues. This objective was achieved, and the practical part of the paper describes in detail the perceptions of the majority society about the minority and its issues. The second task was to describe the differences in these perceptions between the investigated neighbourhoods. This second objective was also achieved. In the practical part of my thesis I have confirmed that the perceptions between the investigated neighbourhoods about the minority is not very different.
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