IPPI Scientific Evenings - Educational inequalities in the lens of ethnographic research
21/04/2026 18:00-20:00PM
https://ppk-elte-hu.zoom.us/j/93712281815
Program
18:00-18:05 Welcome speech
Prof. dr. János Győri, ELTE PPK IPPI
18:05-18:35 Ethnographic research on inequality in education
György Mészáros, associate professor, ELTE PPK
18:35-19:00 Q/A Discussion
5 minutes break
19:05-19:35 Uneven (playing) field - encountering educational inequalities in ethnographic fieldwork
Juli Károlyi, teacher and researcher currently based at ELTE and Corvinus
19:35-20:00 Q/A Discussion
20:00 Closing speech
Prof. dr. János Győri, ELTE PPK IPPI
Ethnographic research on inequality in education
Drawing on my book-based ethnographic research in two contrasting Hungarian schools, I reflect on how educational inequality becomes visible in fieldwork both in immediate encounters and in the wider social reality behind them. Focusing on ideology, social class and habitus, I suggest that ethnography, read through a critical realist lens, can connect everyday school life to the deeper structures and systemic processes through which inequality is produced and normalized.
György Mészáros is an associate professor at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. Prior to his academic career, he worked for several years as a secondary school teacher with Roma students. As a trainer, he is still involved in various emancipatory practices in education. He is primarily a critical ethnographer, but his research interests include educational inequalities, critical pedagogy, philosophy of education, critical research paradigms, pedagogical anthropology, and sexuality and gender.
Uneven (playing) field - encountering educational inequalities in ethnographic fieldwork
An educational ethnography fieldwork project carried out in an underequpped, underfunded, segregated primary school in Budapest naturally yields plentiful examples of inequalities along socioeconomic, cultural and language lines of division. In my presentation I will use some examples to illustrate some of the characteristic types of the uneven distribution of resources I encountered and documented during a fieldwork spanning several academic years.
Károlyi Juli
Juli Károlyi is a teacher and researcher currently based at ELTE and Corvinus. Her main focus is on the situation of Roma children in the Hungarian public education system. Her background is in cultural anthropology. Her other interests include international relations, big and small history and social activism.