Minority educators discuss a public story that challenges social inclusion

Learning, Culture and Social Interaction 7 (2015) 109–125

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Minority educators discuss a public story that challenges social inclusion Colette Daiute a,⁎, Aysenur Ataman a, Tünde Kovács-Cerović b a b

The Graduate Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States University of Belgrade, Čika Ljubina 18-20, Belgrade, Serbia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 10 March 2015 Accepted 1 October 2015 Available online 26 October 2015 Keywords: Social inclusion Education reform Minority group perspectives Roma Pedagogical Assistants Interactive discourse Narrative analysis

a b s t r a c t This paper focuses on understanding professional development as an interactive social, cultural, and political process. Toward that end, we present an analysis of an innovative professional development activity with educators from a minority group in a social inclusion reform program who reflected on a news story of an event challenging the reform. Based on socio-cultural discourse theory, we posited that participants' interactions around the public story would reveal unique insights about implementations of the policy, and we posed questions about what those insights would be. Participants—174 Roma Pedagogical Assistants (PAs)—read, discussed, and wrote endings to the public story in a workshop during their professional training. Analyses of the public story discussions and original story endings by 24 groups of PAs emphasized the need for public authorities to enforce social inclusion policy in collaboration with a wide range of relevant stakeholders, including those in Roma communities. Participants reached this consensus through effortful argumentation about threats to integration indicated in the public story and their own deliberations about the need for justice for the entire community. This study offers evidence that policy subjects offer unique insights by interacting directly with one another around a relevant critical incident. We discuss implications of the study for research and practice of educational reform as an interactive process. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction This paper discusses the importance of providing space and time for subjects of reform policies to address challenges and make suggestions for improvement. Toward that end, we present the design and analysis of a professional development process indicating the mediating role of public stories in social change. This analysis is based on a case study in the Roma Pedagogical Assistant (PA) Program in Serbia, consistent with the Decade of Roma Inclusion policy (2005–2015). Professionals in the innovative role of PA discussed and created endings to a news story expressing ambivalent motivations by majority group parents who prevented pre-school entry of an incoming class of 54 children, including 44 Roma children. The theoretical framework guiding the practice-based inquiry is that individual and societal development occurs via the use and transformation of cultural norms embodied in discourse, a quintessential symbol system (Vygotsky, 1978). Recently, perhaps because of increasing inequality and marginalization of minority groups worldwide, the development of institutions themselves is a focus, as institutions rapidly change and diversify to circumstances (Daniels, 2010; Engestrom, 2009; Fear & Azambuja, 2014). Given a focus on interactions among individuals, groups, and broader society, institutional norms and practices should be open to examination. As stated in one research article, “In keeping with this the generation of alternatives to existing routine practices, ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C. Daiute), [email protected] (A. Ataman), [email protected] (T. Kovács-Cerović).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2015.10.002 2210-6561/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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the transformation of existing institutions, and the building of new institutions, are generally considered phenomena that are worthy of study as special forms of action” (Fear & Azambuja, 2014, p. 286). Consistent with that idea, we explain how such a process of individual and institutional change occurs via collectively considered symbolic and physical artifacts embodying values and goals. The artifact at the center of present inquiry is a news story about a conflict threatening an integration policy. If “institutions are repeated patterns of behavior in relation to an object” (Fear & Azambuja, 2014, p. 292), then public policies are mediators of interactions relevant to social change goals. That policy-making tends to occur in a “top-down way” from elites, such as government officials and representatives of funding organizations, to policy subjects deemed worthy of or requiring politically mediated interventions must be questioned (Hanson, Darbellay and Poretti, 2010). Some policy-makers initially include members of the communities they intend to support; nevertheless, power relations inherent in policy implementations require ongoing participation and authority policy subjects. Examinations of institutional goals and practices have become increasingly integrated into developmental studies (Daiute, 2014; Daiute, Kovacs-Cerovic, Todorova, Jokic and Ataman, 2013; Engeström et al., 1999), but theory and research on the development of institutional policies and practices as interdependent with the development of persons and cultures requires further articulation and examination. A powerful mechanism of such dynamic social change is narrative and its use in public and private discourse (Fairclough, 2010; Wetherell & Potter, 1993). Narrative practices are promising yet require further research as a means of social change. 1.1. The mediating role of narrative Narrating is an activity of oral, written, and visual communication. These discursive activities not only express symbolic thinking but also form it, embody it, and change it (Parker, 2015). Narrative functions in perception, sense-making, and development (Bruner, 1987; Nelson, 1998). Individuals and groups use narrating to figure out what is going on around them, how they fit, and, sometimes, how to change circumstances (Daiute & Nelson, 1997). Research with narrating builds on practices of daily life, where people use storytelling to do things—to connect with other people, to deal with social structures defining their lives, to make sense of what is going on around them, to craft a way of fitting in with various contexts, and sometimes to change them (Daiute, 2014). In this process, narrating integrates perspectives of diverse individuals and groups with varied influence, experience, knowledge, and goals. Like language more broadly, narrating is a purposeful activity directed to other people, one's self, the physical environment, and symbolic culture (Vygotsky, 1978). Narrators use myriad elements, including characters, settings, plot structures resolutions, and morals as building blocks for sharing experience, feelings, and intentions (Labov & Waletzky, 1967/1997). Values and norms that people develop in everyday life guide what they mention or do not dare mention in each narrative appropriate to the purpose, audience, and situation. This communicative nature of narrating—how people express themselves—is central to what people are saying in informal and formal interactions. Beyond developing basic narrative abilities in one's native cultural context, children, adolescents, and adults continue to develop narrative structures and practices as they participate in diverse cultures and institutions, as is increasingly required in this highly mobile and media connected world (Daiute, 2014). Just as storytelling socializes young people via cultural values shared during routine events that parents, teachers, and employers repeat and reinforce, children, adolescents, and adults socialize those around them, by infusing personal details and desires into scripts (routine ways of explaining routine events) and transforming them into nuanced stories (Daiute & Nelson, 1997). Different social scripts may co-occur, may be integrated, like plots and subplots, and may clash, resulting in expressions that seem incoherent. It is through such processes, especially those involving conflict and argumentation that learning, development, and social change occur (Muller Mizra & Perret-Clermont, 2014; Zittoun, 2014). Prior research shows that individuals sometimes conform their personal stories to preferred narratives in their societies but also use narrating to express counter-conforming experiences and ideas, when they have the opportunity (Daiute, 2010; 2014; Daiute, Stern & Lelutiu-Weinberger, 2003). Narrating, thus, can function as a tool to mediate individual and societal interactions. More inquiry is required to demonstrate how that occurs. 1.2. Public stories as mediators of social change A public story is a narrative that circulates explicitly and implicitly among individuals and society in the practices of everyday life. Public stories circulate in society via diverse communications—which may be more interactive like social media, activities in public institutions like schools, workplaces, health services, and people's private conversations, or apparently less interactive like newspaper or other print discourses (Daiute, 2014). Given the cultural use of narratives for identifying and making sense of conflicts, public stories often revolve around diverse beliefs, values, behaviors, claims to resources and rights. A common public story is about an event involving the aggressive action of different sides in a conflict and the role of police in such conflicts, especially when they become violent. Individuals and groups in different positions in society affiliate with different versions of such public stories, for example, those who favor aggressive legal or governmental action in urban neighborhoods versus those who observe that aggressive police actions overwhelmingly target black male youth. In this way, public stories become cultural tools that condense experience and knowledge to organize perception, interpretation, and action. In their familiarity and efficiency, public stories are often canonical and unquestioned scripts (Foucault, 2001; Nelson, 1998). As cultural tools that function for sense making and action, however, public stories embody diverse values circulating in conversations about salient events. When the transmission of public stories proceeds without question or critique, the explanations of reality serving those with influence and power are sustained (Amsterdam & Bruner, 2000). For that reason, opening public stories to argumentation by those with something at

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stake, especially those whose perspectives are not included or are not prominent in the story, is an important step toward understanding the public story process and its potential for social change. 1.3. Stakeholder argumentation around public stories Public stories may circulate unexamined in discourse, until some interaction with them raises questions or alternatives. It is, thus, not the public story alone but interaction with public stories, especially by those with something at stake and whose efforts such as an education reform are challenged by the story. Discussing public stories constitutes “thinking spaces” where collective argumentation and analysis can lead to enhanced understanding and development (Perret-Clermont, 2004). Whether and how public stories become resources for critique, change or development has to do with the nature of this argumentation, and whether “Argumentation practices are powerful resources to deal with cognitive contradictions, doubts, controversies, complex decisions, etc.” (Muller Mizra & Perret-Clermont, 2014, p. 1). Critical views may be expressed in supportive intra-group settings, where there is shared experience, trust, and common goals. For that reason, direct engagement of contentious public stories is a worthwhile endeavor in professional development. Considering this theory and its enactment in a professional context where there is much at stake involves identifying a public story as a relevant cultural artifact and examining interaction around it. Confronting public stories that challenge goals in a social reform makes time and space for individuals with special perspective to reflect collectively and critically and to develop directions for movement beyond antagonistic positions. We posit that engagement of challenging public stories goes beyond any single normative interpretation to a differentiated and reformulated one necessary for social change and development. According to one scholar, “It is the overlap, the tensions, and contradictions between these internalizations which create agency, and the space for reflective thought” (Zittoun, 2014). Institutions promoting social change must also support it, aware of inherent power relations, with open engagement that “…implies that confrontation of perspectives is ‘fair play’ and that submitting to majority world views, prejudices, or status does not contribute to knowledge construction” (Muller Mizra & Perret-Clermont, 2014 p. 1). A theory-based practice with public stories has been implemented in several contexts undergoing major change. “Dynamic Storytelling Workshops” have, for example, involved youth in community centers across post-war Yugoslavia reading, discussing, and re-writing news stories about youth activism during the 1990s wars, to provide a context for participants to reflect on a recent event affecting their lives and their futures (Daiute, 2010). In that study “…public story discussions elicited a range of perspectives about an important political event, young people…provoke(d) one another to think beyond their most easily accessible thoughts (or frozen narratives) to consider a broader range of options that may complicate their own” (Daiute, 2010, p. 177). Participants voiced different views about motivations for youth activism, obstacles to youth participation, and the possible achievements. After such analysis through debate, participants came together with the common goal of finding an ending to the story, thereby achieving new ideas wrought of the process. Applying this idea of the mediating power of narrative within collective engagements of experts in contemporary social inclusion policy implementations, this article presents an analysis of narratives and conversations in the Roma Pedagogical Assistant Program in Serbia. Before presenting the research questions and methods, we briefly present the purpose and method of the Pedagogical Assistant Program in Serbia. As stakeholders in the “Decade of Roma Inclusion” reform, Roma PAs, like other subjects of public policies, should be major evaluators of the reform process, challenges to it, and plans for moving forward. 2. Social inclusion in the Roma Pedagogical Assistant Program Contemporary Roma across Europe are described as living on the margins of society in extremely poor and often unregulated settlements and slums, lacking electricity and other means for participating in mainstream institutions such as education (Roma Education Fund, 2010a). Reports from Serbia, where the Roma population is assessed to be of 300,000–400,000, indicate relatively low Roma participation in education in the early 2000s: 4% in pre-school, 70% of school aged children in school, 50% continuing beyond 4th grade, 10% of those completing 8th grade continuing on to secondary education; gaps are not made up by vocational education, as 6.2% are enrolled in vocational training (Roma Education Fund, 2010b). An increasing number of official regional and national policies are in place since 2005 when the framework of the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005–2015) was established to address the specific need to support Roma participation in education, as it is central to other forms of participation and economic self-determination. The Roma Pedagogical Assistant Program is designed as one of the means of social inclusion and involves Roma professionals working in schools located in areas with particular density of Roma population to connect school and community, thus ensuring timely flow of information, motivating school enrollment, doing homework and home-learning, preventing absenteeism, and assisting in solving current and emerging problems that could affect the education trajectory of each child. The program expanded in a variety of ways through diverse social contexts in the Decade of Roma Integration countries. The program in Serbia became a good example of a program successfully scaled up from an initial 5 RPAs beginning 2000s (Duvnjak, et al., 2010). Today, 174 RPAs, who have all completed at least secondary education, are employed by schools across Serbia, receive their salaries alongside all other teachers (Law on the Foundations of the Education System, 20091), and participate in additional on the job training (Rulebook on the Program of Training for the Pedagogical Assistant, 20102). 1 2

Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, Nos. 72/2009, 52/2011 and 55/2013. Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No. 11/2010.

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One of the implicit aims of our involvement with the Roma PAs was also to contribute to support their authoritative engagement in the educational endeavor and, thereby work together toward a sustainable model with internal power and stamina (Daiute et al., 2013).

2.2. The Roma PA dynamic storytelling workshop The design of the Roma Pedagogical Assistant dynamic storytelling study occurred within a practical workshop and involved systematically selecting a range of expressions by the RPA participants and by relevant institutions such as the regionalcountries ratifying the Roma inclusion treaty3 and the Roma Education Fund. The workshop design was based on theory and practice of action research to engage the perspectives of individuals and institutions involved in reforms in rapidly changing societies. The focus of this action research has been to highlight, in particular, the experiences and reflections of those whose voices are heard less in the process of political economic reform, as well as those with resources and power to make policy. Involved in this workshop were individuals and institutions with much at stake in the reform process, primarily the 174 RPAs, over 50% who are also parents, policy makers embodied in the Decade of Roma Inclusion policy, a Serbian national stakeholder, and the Roma advocacy community embodied in the Roma Education Fund. In addition to including that range of voices, workshop activities invited the RPA participants to share relevant experiences, knowledge, and goals from different perspectives (personal, observer, PA expert) for various purposes (to recount experiences, observe others in their practice, offer advice, and do collaborative problem solving) in relation to various audiences (peers, policy makers, future Roma PAs). Participants sometimes worked individually, such as when writing about the path to becoming a PA and when writing a letter to a future PA, and they sometimes worked collaboratively, such as when discussing a public media story relevant to their practice and making suggestions to all teachers. We refer to these diverse activities as relational genres: narratives of personal journeys to becoming a PA, narratives about a Roma child, letters to future PAs, discussions of a public media story, messages to all teachers, and reflections on findings by the research team. With these diverse expressions, the database for analysis toward our research aims yielded close to 1000 documents with over 6000 analyzed units, as described elsewhere (Daiute et al., 2013). After these documents were translated and organized into a database, the research team analyzed the documents, highlighting the perspectives of the RPAs as such and in relation to the other stakeholders. Analyses revealed that in each genre, the PAs offered different relevant experiences and knowledge, overall presenting a complex picture of the nature of the Roma PA practice, dilemmas of the profession, and challenges of the cultural mediator position. Analyses of documents by the relevant stakeholders in this reform process revealed complex understandings of Roma and nonRoma collaboration in education, diverse obstacles, and roles and responsibilities to address those obstacles. Twenty-four organizing principles (values) emerged from analysis of the documents. Organizing principles are important as the analytic tool because they capture reform-related meanings in systematic ways. Results indicated that participants used narrating to mediate interactions with diverse situations and ideologies operating in their environments. For example, PA participants connected with mainstream organizing principles in their personal journey stories (such as the value of education) while they emphasized the plight of the Roma people in the story of a Roma child (Daiute, Todorova, and Kovacs-Cerovic, 2015). In contrast, participants presented strategies for dealing with the challenges of being in the culturally pivotal position of the Roma PA role in letters they wrote to future RPAs; they offered clear directives in messages to all teachers about how to appreciate and to challenge Roma children educationally, and evaluated their own expressions toward improved professional practice (Daiute et al., 2013). In brief, participants enacted diverse insights across narrative genres in process sensitive to diverse obstacles and opportunities in the education reform. Preliminary analysis of one third of the public story discussions in that first phase of the study revealed some unique as well as shared values, motivating the present study to analyze the full public story process: analyzing the public story itself, transcripts of all the discussion groups, and story endings, with reliability checking and interpreting results. Research questions guiding the present study include “How do professionals involved in an education reform for social inclusion of their community interpret a media story of an event challenging the reform?”; “How do participants enact these interpretations across discussions and story endings?”; “What patterns of similarity and difference emerge across groups and genres (including summary comparison of the public story discussion to other activities in the professional workshop); “What does the public story discussion indicate about the role of policy subjects as necessary agents of public policy development?” and “What does this study indicate about the nature and function of public storying for institutional development?” We expected in the present study that discussing a controversial yet unfortunately all too familiar conflict over participation of the Roma people in education, politics, and other spheres of civic life (Ram, 2013; Rostas, 2012; Burnett, Darvas, Kovacs-Cerovic, Ringold, Gillsater, Stevens, McLaughlin and Varallyay, 2005) would elicit a wide range of experiences, reflections, and authoritative suggestions by the Roma participants. Hypotheses included that participants would state dilemmas, express understandings of diverse perspectives (including those antagonistic to their own), and offer practical suggestions, drawing on their knowledge as Roma community insiders, professionals working on behalf of Roma children, families, communities, and participants in public schools. They would, we hypothesized, do this perspective taking in part because they have experience with such situations personally and in their work on behalf of Roma children, families, and the community.

3

Declaration of the Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005–2015, http://www.romadecade.org/.

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3. Method The present inquiry focuses on interactions among the Roma PAs in relation to an issue they address in their jobs and in life as Roma—that is ongoing discrimination in the name of other issues, such as lack of resources and perceived competition between minority and majority rights. Data for the analysis presented in this article include the image and text of a public story – a news story about a protest by majority parents against admitting a new class of pre-school students including Roma children, 24 group discussions of the story, and "better" endings to the story written by the end of those discussions. The group discussions were audio taped, transcribed, translated, and entered into a database. The data analysis method is described in Section 3.2 (below). 3.1. The public story process This practice-based research activity applied the concept “public story” as an integrative process for mediating policy from the perspectives of the subjects of the policy. The public story process during a day-long practice-based action research project with 174 Roma PAs working in groups of six or seven involved reading the public story (see 3.1.1), discussing it, collectively writing a desirable ending, and sharing results of the deliberations with one another, and across three locations in Serbia. 3.1.1. The public story The public story in this intervention is a news report4 of an event challenging the purpose and practice of education reform. This public story of a protest on the first day of preschool as 54 children—44 children from a nearby Roma community and 10 children from the local majority “Slovak”5 ethnic group are about to enter school describes a confrontation of different points of view between parents of the two groups of children with police and others standing by (Fig. 1). English translation: Monday, September 17, 2012 Roma Children Undesirable in School Residents of Levoča in eastern Slovakia protested because of the admission of Roma children to pre-school. The children were sent back to their homes, and a conflict between Levoča residents and parents was prevented by the police. Levoča residents organized the protest because they don't want 54 new preschool children, of which 44 are Roma, to be admitted to their school—Amnesty International reports. The children were brought to school by bus from the neighbouring village of Macinci, from the Šariž Roma settlement, but were stopped from entering the school premises by force. Parents of Roma children arrived at the scene shortly thereafter, and a potential conflict had to be prevented by about a dozen police officers. Parents of Roma children claim that Levoča residents are exerting segregation and that their children are not let into school only because they are Roma. ‘They've been calling for lynching for days, they said if Roma children went to school there, they would burn the school down together with our children inside. These are 6 year old children, they have never harmed anyone’—said Marcela Oršuš from the Šariž Roma settlement, the portal reports. The Roma claim that the Levoča school was renovated over the summer only so their children could attend it, too. Local residents claim they didn't protest because of Roma children, but because their school is too small to accept another 54 new pupils. They claim that the two classrooms that the school has are too small and that the school has only one sanitary facility and one small kitchen. They insist they will keep preventing new children from attending preschool in their school until they are transferred to another school. Roma representatives claim that, if their children are not allowed to attend school in Levoča, all Roma children will boycott going to school. The public story chosen for this study expresses the complexity of the situation facing the PAs, the policy, and the society moving forward. This news story depicts a critical incident of protest challenging Roma children's inclusion in pre-school—one of the major goals of the inclusion policy. Although regional and national policy makers emphasize and support Roma participation in education, beginning with preschool, the numbers have been so low, and local communities do not appear to share those goals or endorsements of strategies for achieving those goals. Such ambiguity is embodied in the public story we chose for the PA deliberations. The story selection is consistent with those in previous studies that established several criteria for public story design, including 1) identifying an event within the past few years that is of national or local political importance, 2) that elicited public response, such as a demonstration, teach-in, etc., 3) that was reported in the news media, and 4) that was, potentially interesting, enlightening, and worthy for discussion in a research workshop (Daiute, 2010, p. 67). 3.1.2. The public story discussion This practice-based activity included group readings and discussions of a public story with the goal of writing, “How the story should end”. Because the situation is one familiar to the PAs, having the time to discuss it in detail and to generate fair and feasible solutions from their points of view, this is a rare but relevant professional development activity. Of primary interest are the PA uses of the public story to mediate their own professional experience, knowledge, and intentions as enacted in their discussions of the stories.

4 Radio Television of Republic of Serbia (RTS) web portal, September 17th, 2012, available on http://www.rts.rs/page/stories/sr/story/11/Region/1175318/ Segregacija+u+Gornjem+Hra%C5%A1%C4%8Danu.html. 5 In the research, the location of the news story was changed from Croatia to Slovakia to avoid possible confounding effects arising from Serb-Croat relationships during wars in ex-Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

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Fig. 1. The Public Story.

The public story discussion embodies several kinds of interactions: 1) Roma PA participants' face-to-face interactions with one another, 2) participant interactions with the public story, 3) each group's interaction with the assembly of Roma PAs at the workshop to whom they would present, and 4) the broader public who would eventually read their story endings as part of the Rome PA suggestions for ongoing policy development. Participants in six workshops across Serbia worked in groups of six or seven to read the public stories and discussed them with the goal of collectively composing an alternative ending. The time allotted for the discussions was 1 h, followed by another hour when each group shared its consensus ending with the full assembly at the workshop, including six or seven PA groups, instructors, and researchers. Participants organized their own groupings. Instructions for the public story activity were presented orally and in writing, as follows: Here is a story about an event in Slovakia. Read the story in your group. Discuss what happened. Agree in the group how the story should end. What should happen further in the story? Who should be all involved? What do those involved think and feel? How should the situation end? 3.2. Narrative values analysis Data analysis involved values analysis of the public story, the group discussions about the story, and story endings. With this array of documents, our analysis focused on the public story process as a potential mediating tool for use by the most centrally knowledgeable participants reflecting on the policy and challenges to it. Methods involved identifying the primary value guiding each turn of conversation, sentence of the news story, and 24 proposed endings. As in previous studies, values are defined as “culturally-specific goals, ways of knowing, experiencing, and acting in response to environmental, cultural, economic, political, and social circumstances—a definition based on socio-cultural theory” (Daiute et al., 2003, p. 85). The values analysis process is also based on theory that values are principles that people live by. Values

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may be enduring moral codes, situational norms, or, more likely, flexible and changing over time, situation, and other factors. Because narrating is a dynamic process, any single narrator can adopt different values he or she has learned in diverse cultural contexts of daily life (Daiute, 2014, pp. 68–69). Two researchers identified the values from preliminary perusals of the transcripts in consultation with values identified in a previously analyzed data set involving the same participants (Daiute et al., 2013). After creating two Atlas.ti Hermeneutic Units with the 24 transcripts of public story and story endings, we entered the value category labels described below and presented in Table 1 into the coding menu and applied it successively and independently to increments of four transcripts of public stories, until achieving 85.4% inter-rater reliability. The process of conducting inter-rater reliability was based on the ratio of agreement and total number of turns across 10% of the transcripts. After reading each transcript several times for familiarity, the analyst identified a value for each conversational turn where there was evidence of such a value, checked the analysis at another time, and made any necessary edits. (See Daiute, 2014 for a detailed description of values analysis.) The values emerging across the data sources included the importance of the discussion process (focus on the task, interactions among the group, debates, identifying the just/fair/logical solution), the importance of collaboration (Roma and mainstream, ethnic and family, parents, organizations, public authority), the importance of acknowledging and addressing obstacles (culture/history of exclusion, psychological/behavioral, discrimination, poverty and lack of resources, corruption, non-specific), the importance of roles and role enactments (meeting expectations, working for the benefit of children, enacting closely-held qualities, roles of public authority), the importance of personal qualities (natural qualities, being clever, deceit, hope), the importance of outcomes (embedded agent) and solutions (self enacted, other mediated), and, of course, the importance of education (learning). 4. Results Results indicated a range and patterns of values enacted across the 24 discussion groups. The values emerging from this public story discussion extend beyond those in individual and collective expressions by the same professionals (Daiute et al.,). Results described in the following sections indicate the productivity, complexity, and original contribution of engaging critical incidents in practice and, thus, the potential for expanding policy. 4.1. Roma Pedagogical Assistants discuss the public story Eight major categories accounted for values enacted across the public story, public story discussions, and public story endings. These value categories focused on the importance of process, collaboration, obstacles, roles/role enactments, personal qualities,

Table 1 Number and percent of values guiding conversation turns in 24 public story discussions by Roma Pedagogical Assistants (174). Guiding value

Discussions N (%)

Process is important: Focusing on the task Process is important: Interacting Process is important: Debating Process is important: Finding just solution Collaborating is important: Including public authority Collaborating is important: Including Roma & majority Collaborating is important: Including family/community Collaborating is important: Including parents Collaborating is important: Working with organizations Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: Identifying discrimination Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: Identifying poverty & lack of resources Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: Identifying psychological & behavioral issue Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: Identifying the culture & history of exclusion Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: Identifying non-specific issues Roles & Role enactments are important: Identifying the role of public authorities Roles & Role enactments are important: Identifying qualities & motivations Roles & Role enactments are important: Emphasizing expectations Roles & Role enactments are important: Emphasizing that we work for children Personal qualities are important: Identifying deceit Personal qualities are important: Being clever Personal qualities are important: Mentioning natural qualities Education is important: Emphasizing learning Creating solutions is important: Doing self solutions TOTALS:

3553 (49.1) 1473 (20.4) 372 (5.2) 150 (2.1) 5548 (76.6) 239 (3.3) 180 (2.5) 93 (1.3) 62 (0.9) 58 (0.8) 632 (8.8) 174 (2.4) 159 (2.2) 81 (1.2) 74 (1.1) 16 (0.3) 504 (7) 177 (2.5) 49 (07) 45 (0.7) 41 (0.6) 312 (4.4) 59 (0.9) 33 (0.5) 27 (0.4) 119 (1.7) 62 (0.9) 35 (0.5) 7251 (100)

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education, solutions, and outcome. Table 1 presents the major values and sub-categories of each in order of frequency across the 24 public story discussions. Overall the most prominent value expressed was the importance of process with four subcategories enacting different aspects of process. 4.1.1. Valuing group process An overwhelming majority of the conversational turns (7251) enacted the importance of the group process. The importance of process values emerged in turns following first mentions of public story interpretations and ending sequences. We first present findings about the discussion process, because that illustrates the participants' general orientation toward the activity—that is as important to do, to do collectively, and to do in a way that fairly and logically addressed the conflict in the public story and the task goal. The four values indicating the importance of process include focusing on the task (3553 turns of conversation), interacting among the group (1473 turns), debating about proposed interpretations and/or story endings (372 turns), reflecting on the fairness or logic of proposed interpretations and/or story endings (150 turns). Focusing on the task includes turns considering what participants were asked to do, reading and re-reading the public story, composing sequences for their proposed endings, dividing the labor involved in the task, meta-linguistic reflections such as about relationships between stories and life, and various literary elements (“we need quote marks” and “that's not a sentence”). Participants focused on the event as reported in the news story but also expanded beyond details of the news story. The extract below illustrates a sequence of conversational turns indicating the importance of process. Group discussion (Group 11), Turn 13: The questions are…we should start a discussion now, ensuring that everyone participates in it. (Process is important: Focusing on task [dividing labor]) Turn14: What should happen next? (Process is important: Focusing on task [reading from the task instruction]) Turn15: We should continue the story. (Process is important: Focusing on task [rephrasing part of the task instructions]) Turn16: Yes. (Process is important: Interacting [agreement with collaborator's statement]) Turn17: What do you guys think about this event? (Process is important: Interacting [question to collaborators shifting to the event in the news story]) Although the focus on process may seem tedious, these interactions suggest participants' engagement with the problem depicted in the news story, the challenge to create collectively a good ending (defined in their terms), and among an audience of peers both in the small group and in the larger assembly where each group would read its proposed ending. The importance of interpreting the news story and creating a satisfying ending is also indicated by the frequency and nature of turns participants devoted to debates. 4.1.2. Debating the reason for the protest Participants debated a number of issues, most prominently the protesters' motivation for blocking 54 preschool children from entering school on the first day and the cast of characters required for the group's proposed ending to the story. With each group including six or seven participants, the interplay in these debates was fluid, sometimes disorganized, often involving interruptions and argumentation, which we discuss herein as debate. Turns questioning a previous interpretation or suggestion were identified as valuing debate. Debate tended to include function words like “no” or “but” and sometimes indicating alternatives with emphasis such as “that means there is discrimination”. Several of those markers appear in the following sequence and ones below: Group Discussion (Group 1), Turn 124: No, no, it's about if there's enough space for everyone.(8 intervening turns not relevant to this debate) Turn 132: But, you see…. The parents now claim…. The parents are using these words they may have heard somewhere…. One debate that occurred across the groups, sometimes developing at the beginning of the hour-long discussion and sometimes later on, was whether discrimination or lack of resources was the reason for the protest against the new group of preschoolers. After 33 intervening non-debating turns, participants in discussion group 1 for example, picked up the debate begun in the extract above with the following: Turn 165: That means there is room. (9 intervening turns guided by other priorities) Turn 174: But it says in continuation that they organized the protest because they don't want the 54 kids, and not 44, 54 kids to be received in the school. (2 intervening turns) Turn 176: This is not what the Roma, nor what the local residents say. This is, I think, what Amnesty International says. (144 intervening turns) Turn: 320: But I don't understand these families that are protesting. They are trying to hide that it is discrimination by saying: ‘we're not protesting because of the Roma but it's impossible to have that number….’ (11 intervening turns) Turn 331: But it's in the story, is it inside the story.

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(5 intervening turns) Turn 336: I hear you, but, we created this precisely based on how we feel. In addition to debating the interpretation of the story, participants debated which characters to include. 4.1.3. Debating characters to include in the story ending Debates also revolved around which characters to include in the group's story ending. As we discuss below, there was consensus across the groups that public authorities, educators, and community members had to be involved in addressing a protest inhibiting children's attendance in pre-school, but the specific officials and others to be included constituted considerable debate, as in the following extracts. Group discussion 7 (Group 7), Turn 115: It can't be solved at the level of the parent's council because they would have solved it immediately that day. … Turn 112: At least that's the way I would solve it, but I believe that this would all be solved at the level of the parents' council. Turn 113: I don't think it could be, it's a dead-end. … Turn 115: It can't be solved at the level of the parent's council because they would have solved it immediately that day. … The importance of process across the 24 group discussions goes beyond frequency of turns. The intense focus on process indicates the participants' engagement with crafting a just, reasonable, and feasible resolution via the ending they were writing to the story. That they would be presenting the story endings to their peers may have also added to the interest in writing good resolutions to this controversial story, as all in the room shared the PA and Roma experiences. This intense focus on process also indicates participants' breadth and depth of knowledge relevant to the depicted event, as no simple interpretation or solution seemed an option. This debate process is consistent with explanations of the contexts, participants, and motivations for “productive argumentation” (Muller Mizra & Perret-Clermont, 2014). Participants discussing the public story contributed knowledge to the social inclusion process, and, perhaps, to themselves as they realized they had consensus around a major value that emerged in their discussions. While participants intensely debated the motivations of the majority parents prohibiting children (including Roma children) entering preschool and may not have ever all agreed on whether the motivation was lack of resources or exclusion of Roma children, the debates made way for expressing the need for public officials to use their authority to enforce policies and laws for inclusive education and for broad collaboration in that process. Even though and probably because the discussants focused so much on process, including debating, they created coherent and relatively consistent endings across the groups, as we discuss below. Although disagreements were not all resolved during the discussions, diverse sides were expressed and attended to by the group, thus overall enacting consideration of multiple points of view if not agreement or compromise. Because process values accounted for such a large percentage of the conversational turns, the relative focus on turns introducing segments of the original story ending is also important. The next sections define and illustrate those values emerging in the first mentions of issues and suggestions in the public story discussions. 4.2. Values guiding interpretations and story ending suggestions Values indicated in turns proposing whole or parts of a story ending were identified on their first appearance in the discussion. Those original-suggestion values were interwoven with turns enacting processes, such as repeating those proposed sequences, debating them, or as part of the process discussed above. Participants expressed issues and suggestions relevant to collaboration, obstacles, roles/role enactments, personal qualities, education, and character agency in addressing the public story conflict. The first proposal of an interpretation, such as “It’'s outright discrimination!” and “Let’'s propose that authorities come in to make sure the laws are followed” indicated values such as “Acknowledging the obstacle of discrimination is important” and “Ensuring roles and role enactments of public authorities to address such situations is important” respectively. Table 2 (the left-most column) presents the number and percentages of values guiding the first-time issues and story ending suggestions. In terms of frequency, participants' first-time mentions of issues and story-ending sequences emphasized the importance of collaboration (632 turns, 38%), the importance of obstacles (504 turns, 30%), the importance of roles and role enactments (312 turns, 19%), personal qualities (119 turns, 7%), followed by the importance of education, character self-solution, and seven values indicated by fewer than 15 turns. Collaborators proposed as important for an ending to this public story, included public authorities, laws, policies, Roma and mainstream people (generally), parents; community/ethnic groups/family, and organizations. 4.2.1. Valuing collaboration Collaboration was the second most prominent value after orientation to process. As shown in Table 2, 38% of the conversational turns emphasized collaboration, mostly and uniquely, stating the responsibility of public officials to enforce social inclusion policies. This focus on the necessary participation of public officials was unique in this public story genre, compared to other discursive expressions indicated in previous analyses of data from the same study.

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The following interchange from a group discussion illustrates sequences with participants' proposals to be included in proposed story endings. As illustrated in these extracts, turns proposing collaborators to include in the story ending are interspersed with turns indicating other values, often process values. Group discussion (Group 7) Turn 124: You arrive there, you see the situation happening,…. Turn 125: First, we would have to…that's right…call the representatives of the parents, the Roma parents, and of those others. (Collaborating is important: Including parents) Turn 126: Gather them together, you mean?(Collaborating is important: Including Roma and majority) Turn 127: Exactly. (Process is important: Interacting within the group) Turn 128: I think the parents should be calmed down first, and then, certainly,…. (Personal qualities are important: Psychology and behavior) (Intervening turns) Turn 131: I'm just saying, perhaps a meeting should be held, maybe just with one side, then the other, then all of them together, but a discussion should definitely be held with both sides. And then…. (Collaborating is important: Including Roma and majority participants) Turn 132: Who will talk with them? (Roles and role enactments are important). Turn 133: The principal, the school principal talks to them. (Collaborating is important: Involving public authorities) (Intervening turns) Turn 137: The school principal, perhaps also an office in charge of this. (Collaborating is important: Including public authorities) How collaboration had been done behind the scenes in the event depicted in the story and the relevance of this to a proposed story ending also focuses on and complicates the importance of collaboration. Group discussion (Group 11), Turn 133: The school is an indirect participant, not a direct one. Turn 135: Why would the school be responsible for the non-Roma parents' behavior? Turn 137: Whose behavior is the school responsible for? Non-Roma parents'? Turn 139: How? Maybe the school did call the police, and said, let those non-Roma children in. How do you know they weren't the ones who call the police? PAs' primary suggestion for characters in the story endings was a wide range of public officials. The range of characters across the 24 discussion sessions included those already in the news story but most notably added public authorities. Those included in the original news story were the police, Roma and non-Roma, Roma parents, protesting parents, organizers of the protest (in the story implicitly). As indicated in Table 2, much of the discussion focused on the importance of collaboration of a broader range of

Table 2 Number and percent of values guiding sentences in proposed public story endings and conversation turns across 24 Roma Pedagogical Assistants' discussion groups. Guiding value

Collaborating is important: Including public authority Collaborating is important: Including Roma & majority Collaborating is important: Including family/community Collaborating is important: Including parents Collaborating is important: Working with organizations Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: identifying discrimination Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: identifying poverty& lack of resources Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: Identifying psychological & behavioral issue Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: Identifying the culture & history of exclusion Acknowledging/Addressing obstacles is important: Identifying non-specific issues Roles & Role enactments are important: Identifying the role of public authorities Roles & Role enactments are important: Identifying qualities & motivations Roles & Role enactments are important: Emphasizing expectations Roles & Role enactments are important: Emphasizing that we work for children Personal qualities are important: Identifying deceit Personal qualities are important: Being clever Personal qualities are important: Mentioning natural qualities Education is important: Emphasizing learning Creating solutions is important: Doing self-solutions TOTAL:

Discussions

Story endings

N (%)

N (%)

239 (14.4) 62 (3.8) 180 (10.9) 58 (3.5) 93 (5.6) 632 (38) 159 (9.6) 174 (10.5) 81 (4.9) 74 (4.5) 16 (1) 504 (30.3) 177 (10.7) 49 (3) 45 (2.8) 41 (2.5) 312 (18.8) 59 (3.6) 33 (2) 27 (1.7 119 (7.2) 62 (3.8) 35 (2.2) 1703 (100)

46 (17.4) 23(8.8) 22 (8.4) 15 (5.8) 3 (1.2) 109 (41,4) 29 (11.1) 27 (10.3) 7 (2.7) 4 (1.6) 1 (.4) 68 (25.8) 12 (4.6) 6 (2.3) 2 (.8) 6 (2.3) 26 (.1) 2 (.8) 0 0 2 (.8) 35 (13.4) 23 (8.8) 263 (100)

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stakeholders, in particular those with authority and responsibility to mediate the problem and those involved in and affected by the protest. This extended list of potential collaborators (as phrased in the translated discussion transcripts) includes the following: Social Service, Center for Social Work, local self-government, Red Cross, school police officer, police surveillance officer, some authority, protector of (citizen's) rights, Commissioner for the Protection of Minority Rights, Commissioner for the Protection of Equality (a State body), Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Protector of Citizens, Ombudsman, Media/Television/Press (Blic; national newspaper; prime time, RTS1, half past seven news), Municipal Hall, relevant bodies, the Law, piece of paper stating the law, citizens' assembly committee, leaders, community stakeholders, international participants, representative of the preschool, preschool management, head of the preschool, town authorities, the Ministry of Education, a donor, Parents' Council, Roma National Council, the Office of Roma Inclusion, local residents, the Land Registry, Department for Emergency, School Principal, a representative of the Roma from those settlements, School Board, the State, Pedagogical Assistant, Director, President of the local self-government, Council for Inter-ethnic Relations, the representative in charge of education, school inspection, Assistant to the Mayor, local community center, NGO (non-governmental organization), Coordinator for Education, Authorized Department of Education, local interior affairs office, the mediator, the Mayor, school's child psychologist expert, Municipal Board, local priest, a police representative, staff of the school, parents of Roma, parents of nonRoma. Some of the participants offered reasons why they had proposed the inclusion of public officials, as in the following turns: “…a representative of the school. They should be present there, rather than to have the locals negotiate with the parents, rather than having the parents and the local residents argue over what and how. Some law exists, after all”; “So, the Pedagogical Assistant, the director, the Parents' Council, the school administration, then you move to higher instances if things don't turn out successful with the principal”; “A protector of human rights, because I believe an organization alone, a Roma organization alone is not the key to resolving the problem, but rather a Protector of Human Rights”. Most of the proposals for collaborators emerged across successive turns of conversation, but the above turn illustrates the thrust of these proposals for collaborators that could be influential in resolving the conflicts in the story. That turn includes potential participants with increasing power and influence. Relevant to the purpose of this activity for the Pedagogical Assistants, their experience and knowledge is that “Pedagogical Assistant” is the first one proposed, followed by others with, as stated, “higher instances” to come in if the previous fail. 4.2.2. Valuing acknowledgment of and addressing of obstacles As shown in Table 2, the importance of acknowledging and addressing obstacles was prominent after collaboration. Obstacles proposed as important contributions to the conflict, included the importance of acknowledging discrimination (174 turns, 10.5%), acknowledging poverty/lack of resources (159 turns, 9.6%), psychological factors/behavior(81 turns, 4.9%), acknowledging the history/culture of exclusion (74 turns, 4.5%), attributions of non-specific obstacles (16 turns, 1%). The following turn is typical of those introducing the importance of considering discrimination in deliberations about the public story: Turn 000: segregation, to not let the Roma children go to…. They claim it's not that, but I think it is (from PD1). Group Discussion (Group 3) Turn 064 : The local self-government, on the other hand, is to send their, erm, inspectors, to examine the situation, why and how come these children didn't come to school. They determined that there was enough space in this school, preschool. The children were regularly enrolled and started the preparatory preschool program. If you guys agree. Turn 065: Yes, but I believe they still won't accept those Roma children, regardless of the fact that those two…are under the authority of…. Regardless of everything, they won't accept them. We have to create something to make the society accept them, both groups. We should create integration in there first, so they would be accepted. Turn 066: I don't think we can do any integration. There is law. They are openly threatening, and they don't want to accept the Roma children. They breached the law. The Law on Education, they breached it. Turn 067: We won't put them to trial now. The diverse range of potential collaborators to address conflicts like those in the public story were also depicted as serving diverse roles. 4.2.3. Valuing the importance of diverse roles and role enactments The importance of diverse roles and role enactments in participants' interpretations of the public story included expressing the contributions that public authorities would add to addressing the problem (177 turns, 10.7%), expressing the personally held orientations in those involved in the story solution (49 turns, 3%), the need to meet expectations in the society, community (45 turns, 2.8%), the importance of supporting children (41 turns, 2.5%). Two characteristic examples include, they are the ones who have the power (p. 17, turn 84) and the parents are not the ones who can decide, right, on whether the children will or will not go, it's those from the school who are in charge (p23, 28) To illustrate how emphasizing the importance of roles and role enactments goes beyond the proposal of an authority, albeit sometimes only slightly, the following example continues group discussion 1 (PD1) presented above. Turn 84: of course. You can write ‘PU’ (‘predskolska ustanova’) for preschool institution. Red Cross…. Turn 85: is that all? Turn 86: Red Cross, that can help by…

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Turn 87: I think they said to only put code numbers here. Turn 88: Not the codes. First you talk, then you write, then…. Turn 89: then we put our codes in the end. Turn 90: We'll do that later, that's not a problem. Red Cross is here because I personally think it could offer any type of assistance to this preschool institution to secure conditions for a normal and regular attendance of these 54 pupils, of which 44 are Roma. Turn 91: Hey, but you know what? We should think first of what kind of an end we want. Participants stressed the roles and enactments of various authorities they mentioned, as presented in Section 4.2.3 above. When the activity or capacity of the authority was mentioned, this indicated the value of specific authoritative functions in addressing the conflict toward a resolution, in the story and beyond. The range of valued roles of authorities goes beyond the importance of collaboration to the importance of the authority, power, or resources the authority can bring to bear on the conflict. These roles and role enactments include: answer the question, offer any type of assistance to this preschool institution to secure conditions for a normal and regular attendance of these 54 pupils of which 44 are Roma, to monitor whether the locals make problems, seeing whether it's unable to act, “to protect,” “help them with what to do next, who to turn to,” “to inform,” “to solve,” “decide on the issue,” “get actively involved,” “to determine the state of facts at this school,” “take into consideration that other school in that other village,” “explain things nicely to them,” “feel responsibility,” “how much influence can he exert over the majority population?” “provide a permit to build another such facility next to these classrooms,” “person in charge of construction permits…see what he tells you, if it could or couldn't be done or whatever,” “forward it [your letter] to the Ministry of Education,” “protect citizen's rights,” “finance the part that should contain the strengthening of the school's capacity,” “should increase the capacity of the school and increase the number of classrooms,” “maintaining the school's inventory, maintaining classrooms,” “budget allocation has to be made for the new preschool teacher, the teacher is paid on the budget allocation,” “controls the work of the institution,” “a classroom has to have certain prescribed measures under the law…,” “create balance,” “to secure funds,” “finance the equipment and rearrange the premises,” “licensed mediators,” “given an opinion and ask for mediation,” “file a complaint,” “create a report on what happened,” “deal with the problems,” “give security,” “investigate the case,” “procure funds for the construction works,” “the president's promise,” “prepare the minutes,” “guarantee security,” “Roma representative promised, if the problem is not resolved, he would personally take responsibility for these children,” “prevent possible conflicts,” “determine whether or not the conditions are really inadequate,” “the law is either on one side or another,” “in accordance with the legal framework,” “has the obligation to carry out research,” “organize a conference for all local inhabitants and explain to them that things are simply not done like that,” “deliver a speech,” “under the law, you can't have single-ethnicity groups if the school is in a mixed environment,” Extracts below by different groups also express diverse roles. “…The school has to send a letter to the local self-government and to the Ministry requesting an increase in the school's capacity, in terms of empowering the school to open [room for] one more group”. “If they're unable to find an agreement, attending pre-school has to be secured for the Roma children, end of story, even if it's through the police. That's my opinion”. “And they have to be included in the pre-school groups, whether other parents like it or not. And a piece of paper quoting the law should be posted outside, warning them in case of an attack they will be held responsible. I don't know what else there is to do”. “You have to contact the power, this guy (the Ombudsman) does not solve anything, so you have to address the president of the municipality, the Ministry of Education”. Phrases included to indicate the importance of the role and enactment of the authority figure: “…to negotiate on behalf of the Roma, to convince these people that these children won't be detrimental to anyone, if they do go to that school”; “…a man who has influence over them and with whom we can find common ground, so we can start negotiations regarding persuading someone from among these locals to call a meeting”. Sometimes the inability or unfilled expected action of a character role is cited, such as “they didn't react properly,” “didn't take any measures,” “not okay to give such statements,” “was it just sloppiness?” “should have protected these kids,” “should have calmed the situation,” “responsible to protect children,” “we are unable to implement the law,” Also values the role of authorities by asking “what is this person supposed to do?” Sources of power also indicate this value, as in “the Ministry of Education is their employer?” “authorized for education,” “what is the standpoint of the local self-government in this story?” 4.3. The importance of personal qualities, education, solutions, and outcome Personal qualities relevant to interpreting the public story and creating a novel ending included the need to identify deceit on the part of story characters as appropriate (59 turns, 3.6%), the importance of the group being careful or clever in how they attributed

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intentions to others and crafted solutions (33 turns, 2%), acknowledging natural qualities like feeling hurt by discrimination (27 turns, 1.7%). 4.4. The complex integration of diverse values The co-occurring values enacted by the 24 groups indicate complex combinations of critique and creative solution. This complex enactment of values interacts with yet goes way beyond the laborious respect of the task (“Our job is to decide together on the continuation of the story, how the story should end”) and repetitious consideration of actors required to participate in the story completion (“That means, different institutions should be involved. Ministry for Minority and Human Rights should react to this. Even common NGOs should react to this”), divisions of labor (“You have great handwriting so will you write it?”), and so on. For example, notable in terms of the importance of policy subjects reflecting on challenges is that the PA discussions balanced collaboration in the face of quite realistic acknowledgement of discrimination and the need for responsibility on the part of public officials. Drawing on details of the systematic values analysis, we observe how participant conversations addressed dilemmas at the center of policy implementation relevant to social inclusion. Comments like the following are proposed, debated, and transformed: “These days they [the Roma] are criticized if they don't go to school, and now those others are preventing them from going”. Balance enters with consideration of what could be done to address such situations, in the concrete form of an alternative positive ending to the media story, as reflected in the following turn (also presented above): “Yes, but I believe they still won't accept those Roma children…regardless of everything, they won't accept them. We have to create something to make the society accept them, both groups. We should create integration in there [in that school] first, so they would be accepted.” Another frequent deliberation is over whether the protest also addressed lack of facilities: “On the other hand, we are looking at this from our perspective. But if, for example, the non-Roma parents read it, they will conclude this is not discrimination [but a lack of facilities]. Our understanding of things is that this might be…we have a hunch that this is discrimination. But someone who is not Roma will say that this is not discrimination”. These realizations co-occur with an overwhelming consensus toward collaboration as in the following statement: “The NGO sector should be included, the local self-government…. They should act together with the parents, too, and with the local inhabitants.” Conversation (Group 1) Turn 72: What the point here is, is how big a number of children can they receive, over the number of children that already attend the school. (Importance of acknowledging obstacles, the issue of resources) Turn 73: Yes, that's the question. The preschool institution should answer that question. (Importance of roles and role enactments of public authorities) Turn 74: That's right. (Importance of process: interaction) Turn 75: Can they…? Over the…. (Importance of process: interaction) Turn 76: Since they're already involved…. Allow me to continue with answers to questions, if you guys agree. Since the police has already been involved…. (Importance of process: interaction) Turn 77: It should stay involved. (Importance of roles and role enactments of public authorities) Turn 78: Of course. The police stays. And then…. Who else should be involved? (Importance of process: Interaction) Turn 79: Center for Social Work. (Importance of collaboration with public authorities) Turn 80: Ok, the police. Did you guys write it? We'll write it later. Then, Center for Social Work…. (Importance of process: Task) Turn 81: Local Self Government, right? (Importance of collaboration with public authorities) Turn 82: Yes, the local self government should be present. (Importance of process: Interaction) Turn 83: And the principal of the institution. (Importance of collaboration with public authorities) As this extract illustrates, interaction sequences involved generating proposals for persons who should be involved in the story ending. In summary, the event reported in the public story and the reporting of that event challenged the concept of social inclusion, by shining a light on the protest, depicting it as a "fight", and leaving the situation unresolved. In contrast, the PAs raised the political dimension of the story by expanding the cast of characters in terms of social structural relations and an ultimate goal of justice. Analyses of the endings they wrote echoed these factors but also maintained the focus on education. 5. Story endings Values analyses indicated that public story endings participants created during their discussions conformed to a narrower range of values than they had addressed in their 1-h interactions around the public story. Table 2 (the right-most column) presents the number and percentages of values guiding sentences in proposed public story endings and in the endings the 24 groups ultimately wrote and presented to other groups at their workshops. Differences in values expressed across the public story discussions and proposed endings are also relevant for considering the functions of professional discussion of challenges to education reform. The public story endings emphasized values including the importance of education, especially children's learning, and solutions organized by the central participants. On the other hand, public story discussions emphasized the specific roles and obligations of public authorities, deceit on the part of the majority

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parents who claimed the lack of space for rejecting the incoming pre-school class with many Roma children rather than their refusal to have their children school with Roma children. These differences highlight the importance of professional reflections around controversial situations challenging public policies. In this situation, Roma PA's brought their insider knowledge as critical and context-sensitive insiders of social inclusion policy. Group discussions and the argumentation therein provided the opportunity for the PAs to express their acknowledgement of duplicitous explanations for refusing to let children attend preschool, while also entertaining the possibility of lack of space and discrimination in their intra-group discussions. According to argumentation theory and research (Muller Mizra & Perret-Clermont, 2014), the possibility for adults to engage a range of perspectives—to compromise—results in learning and development. 6. Discussion This paper integrates theoretical considerations about social change and policy processes from the perspectives of professionals with much at stake for themselves, their communities, and their society in need of integration. It is not surprising that subjects of public policy would have commitment and expertise to contribute to addressing challenges to improvements in social and political life of diverse societies. Nevertheless, this analysis has offered detailed evidence about how this process can occur. Given their central role as members of the Roma community with official roles in the mainstream public education system in Serbia, the 174 participants in the practice-based study reported in this article were in relatively central functions compared to policy subjects in other contexts. Roma leaders had been, moreover, involved in designing the Serbian PA program. Interactions in the public story process around a critical incident challenging educational goals and efforts remains outside the policy development, training, and, thus, implementation systems. Supportive spaces are required to elicit this expertise in a public way. 6.1. Collaborative professional development as learning Our argument is that the Roma PAs have well wrought experience and knowledge to inform policy and practice, although reform practices do not draw on that expertise throughout the reform process. In this process, we focus on the importance of the Roma PA discussions for sharing their expertise, expanding it via in-group argumentation, and developing it in the process of acknowledgment and solidarity. In this sense, we also suggest that while the participants were most likely becoming increasingly aware of what they already knew, the potential for learning may actually, one day, occur in a policy-making system that engages policy subjects in a substantive way. 6.2. Story and life Participants clearly worked with the news story as a story but also connected this story to their lives, their communities, and their professional activities. While some scholars, practitioners, and interested lay people might prefer clear distinction between story and life, we explain that the participants' engagement with the public story, their discussion of it, and creating an original ending, supports their use of narrative to mediate professional roles and dilemmas in real life. The public story process—that is discussion by stakeholders focused on a public document, like a media report, interacting with their own activities, experiences, knowledge, and goals—presumes that participants will perceive this story as relevant to their lives yet an object available for their manipulation. The purpose of this manipulation should evidently be based on their taking the story seriously, as participants in this study did, yet interacting with it in critical and creative ways, toward their collective interpretation, transformation or other relevant change. We present our analysis, in part, to offer evidence of this creative use of the public story for life purpose. The following turn is poignant illustrations of this connection. From discussion group (Group 13), Turn 295): Look, do you know how these things go? I'll tell you what kind of a problem we had. Z's school didn't have the space to place some children from the village of Rit. So they were going to transfer them to my school. I hadn't yet started working there at the time. And, my school wouldn't accept them. So the School Administration called Z's school principal and my school's principal and ordered my school's principal in front of everyone to receive all children”. At other times, participants shifted from story to life more implicitly, as in the following comment, wherein one participant made the connection directly to the PA professional development training. Discussion group (Group 13 Turn 430): What can we do here, to improve their state and the current situation? So, number one…. We did this type of thing in seminars, right? What she gave us the lecture on. We should invite, whom? The Ombunsdman isn't that right? Because the Ombundsman cares about the rights of children”. Another bridge between story and life is illustrated in the following suggestion from discussion group 17, turn 26: We should read the law and look things up a little. Because public stories organize all our lives, engaging with stories that are taken for granted and revising them is not a mere exercise but is central to political and social life. In the Roma PA public story process, participants' consideration of opposing points of view, determination that even if there were resource limits, excluding Roma children from pre-school flies in the face of human rights and law, while there remains the need for collaborative approaches mediated by public authorities. Working through this logic in a professional context with a story that has the potential to organize human perception and action should, we argue, be understood as potential for social change.

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Employing public stories for professionals' to interpret and extend as they wish seems the most likely way to build on their deep knowledge and expertise. Of course, this is also. 6.3. Speaking from minority positions with complexity Scholars have argued that people being discriminated against are acutely aware of discrimination, have finely honed their analytic skills to identify discrimination and reactions to it (DuBois, 1903/2014; Cross, 1991). Having the opportunity to enact these abilities, share insights with the policy makers, identify needs and strategies, as well as obstacles is a critical, yet infrequent aspect of policy implementations. By foregrounding the perspectives of subjects of education reform—in a case study in particular with Roma Pedagogical Assistants, this study reveals the field-based perspective at the center of education reform dealing in complex ways with extant challenges at the very core of the problem and reform. What we learn from this analysis to guide academics, policymakers and practitioners and learners in different locations is that with ample opportunities to discuss challenges facing social inclusion professionals, the indigenous perspective is deliberative, critical, creative, and informative for future practice and policy. With the range of interactive processes including disagreements, agreements, effortful construction of a just and reasonable ending to a bad event, toward the story, one another, and the activity in the professional context, the Roma PAs used the public story discussion to mediate and transform their interaction in the education reform. The public story activity affords insights about the PA shifted positions from policy and training subjects to experts informing society and potentially policy makers about a familiar incident in practice that those in practice have best insights to address. The public story discussions are powerful interventions because they engage participants with much at stake to reflect from the authoritative perspectives of diverse roles. Across the diverse roles of pedagogical assistant, group members reflected on a news story of an event directly challenging their role PA work and the policy to which they are subject, as well as being members of one of the communities in question. In our study so dependent on collective goals and processes, we highlight social interactions of participants with one another and the contentious public story, and interactions with the broader context of educational reform in their histories of experience and in the professional development environments. Nevertheless, the intra-group deliberations, debates, and differentiations are especially important because they foreground the specific experience and knowledge of policy subjects necessary for going beyond general and neutral platitudes negotiated in policies and thus perhaps easily bypassed as givens or, eventually, as unnecessary. Examining such purposeful diverse positioning oriented toward others and reflecting back on personal orientations provides a frontier for the study of human development, especially among societies with increasingly culturally heterogeneous settings. The incidence and need to understand adult development in diverse settings, new countries, emerging institutions, and so on should be an urgent goal of developmental psychology at this time for its previous lack of focus and the dramatically changing global organization occurring even in small villages. These PA discussions around familiar issues with salient goals in specific time and place are profoundly material in their salience and symbolic force as “…people moving within their societies, specifically moving between social positions, which are institutionally sanctioned roles with situational demands…. Each social position sustains a psychological perspective, and thus people moving into a social position are stepping into the associated psychological perspective in a fundamentally embodied way.” (Gillespie & Martin, 2014, p. 73). Analyzing the values emerging in the public story discussions and highlighting those values emerging in this direct collaborative confrontation of threats to education reform offers insights about the importance of critical practice and unique insights of subjects of public policies and public stories. Based on their experience and expertise, Roma PAs possess that “second sight” identified by W.E.B. Dubois over 100 years ago in a very different context. As one participant put it, “They criticize Roma for not going to school and then prohibit them from entering”. Participants would, no doubt, share such insights with one another, perhaps in private interactions. We offer the design and analysis to indicate how being involved in the process of interpreting and revising public stories is a context for changing narratives. 7. Implications Given our theory about the potential critical and creative public story engagement, those in a minority position share their interpretations and strategies with one another and, eventually with the broader practice and policy designers. We conclude by opening discussion of implications of public stories as a fertile focal point for multi-cultural considerations the goals and challenges of policies in particular from the perspectives of participants whose plights are meant to be addressed by the policy interventions. Public stories embody extant social issues, and they, moreover, become media for change and development when those with relevant experience discuss these stories with purpose and depth. It is possible that the chatter on the internet may engage such issues, but the considerations, debates, perspective-taking, constructions, and common goals enacted in the public story discussions examined in this study, suggest that to contribute to development and change, time, space, a shared experience, common goals, and trust are central to the process, if not utterly necessary. The effortful process interwoven with original ideas indicates the value of experts at the center of policies having the opportunity to address challenges to their participation with their collective wisdom and agency. Creating time for discussion was also proposed as an alternative to training—to enact the expertise and unique knowledge of these professionals. The Roma PAs' focus on process, discrimination, and collaboration among a wide range of diversely positioned participants to address conflicts and seek solutions challenges the concept of "social inclusion" to become a

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practice of "social and political integration". These PA participants' uses of multiple narratives - the public story and their own endings – and intense narrating process – challenges the challenge to reform made by protesting against preschool with a broader narrative of shared responsibility to create an educated society. 8. Conclusion Recognizing the dilemmas of social inclusion policy is an appropriate, albeit not typically recognized, way to incorporate the unique understanding and leadership positions of those who are the subjects of policies. The most salient findings from this analysis indicate the effortful and purposeful engagement of 174 professionals in narrating as a means of professional practice. Collaboration within the discussion groups and oriented outward toward various communities and practices was extensive and invoked multiple layers of perspectives and stakeholders. In addition, in spite of and perhaps because of their vested interest as Roma, as professionals, and as people crossing what continue to be cultural divides in European and other contexts, the PA debates about the masking of discrimination in the guise of limited resources indicate deep knowledge, sophistication and balance in considering perspectives of diverse others in society, as well as within the Roma community, and one's self. In short, these professionals demonstrated a context sensitive shifting of Roma, non-Roma perspectives, and beyond to transcend exclusion in ways that could define policy. 9. Post-script We are writing this article in December 2014, when protests are raging across the United States in the wake of Grand Jury decisions not to indict police officers who killed unarmed black men this year. Protests in Ferguson Missouri, New York City, and Cleveland Ohio where police killings of an 18 year old, 43 year old, and 12 year old black males, all unarmed (except for the toy gun of the 12 year old) have not gone to trial grew to massive demonstrations across the nation on December 14. Mostly peaceful, protestors from all walks of life have repeated the final words of one of the victims, Eric Garner, “I can't breathe”, with the gesture of hands held up in surrender, like those of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, who were also unarmed and tried to show that. These events and the public outrage at the lack of justice for youth of color have transformed into a cry that “Black lives matter” and that leaders and laws must act to ensure justice for blacks and other minorities in the United States, 50 years after the civil rights movement enacted laws for integration, 150 years after the abolition of slavery. These events may seem distant from the lives of the 11 million Roma people living across Europe and from 174 Roma PAs with a unique role and challenge in their country still dealing with the aftermath of war and their role in the wars of the 1990s. The public story in this article will seem familiar to some people, albeit a story with differently named characters and places. U.S. protests are demanding new systems of accountability of laws, lawmakers, and officers, in France, and in the public story examined here a resonant comments by one of the PAs was “Roma community, PAs', parents can't do it alone….” This dilemma emerges after the opposition of opinions, over time, and in deliberation. In the Roma PA public story discussions, the plea is for police, and other public officials, to do the jobs. There's no policy without responsibility of policy makers to make sure policies are followed, and from the public story conversations, for the subjects of policies to contribute their knowledge and authority. It is this sense of public trust, accountability, everyone's doing his/her part, that the Roma PA emphasis on the importance of collaborating with public authorities came across in their discussions. As stakeholders in the “Decade of Roma Inclusion” reform, Roma PAs, like other subjects of public policies, should be major evaluators of the reform process and challenges to it, although their expertise is rarely elicited. Acknowledgements The research upon which this paper is based was supported by a grant received from OSCE-Serbia, Roma Education FUND, UNICEF Serbia. References Amsterdam, A., & Bruner, J. (2000). Minding the law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1987). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 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