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In this chapter, the authors describe the developments towards Roma inclusion in Spain through Successful Educational Actions. First, the authors describe the main characteristics of the Spanish Roma Minority with special regard to their cultural and linguistic diversity and deprivated social situation. After a brief overview of the Spanish education system, the authors give a detailed picture of the educational attainment of the Roma minority in Spain. After then the authors present and analyse the most important successful policies and support programmes for Roma education.

This introduction from Andrea Óhidy and Katalin R. Forray provides a brief overview of the social and education situation of European Roma and also about the structure of this book. Roma are here described as a ‘hidden minority’ (see the country study about Italy from Valeria Cavioni), because – although they are the largest minority group living in Europe for more than a hundred years – we still know very little about them. Although most of the Roma people have been living for centuries in European countries, their situation is still different from the non-Roma population; they often suffered from poverty and exclusion. There is a host of Roma, especially in Southern and in Eastern Europe, who is considered to be the most disadvantaged group in European societies, for example, regarding their (1) health situation, (2) on the labour and (3) on the housing market and (4) also in education. Questions of education are the central elements of politics making the situation of Roma better. To fulfil these requirements some European countries have taken determined steps. As Natascha Hofmann in the country study about Germany wrote, we are in the phase of the ‘dawn of learning’ because there are more and more policies and programs to develop attainment and success of Roma in European education and lifelong learning. This book gives an overview about retrospective and prospective tendencies in the situation of European Roma in education and lifelong learning.

In this chapter, the author provides an overview of some central issues of the book. First she shows the similarities in the challenges to increase the participation and success of Roma people in education and lifelong learning in the selected European countries; then she discusses their policies and support programmes, which on the one hand try to improve the social situation of the Roma while promoting minority language and culture on the other hand. The author finds the reason for their similarities regarding the wording, defining and communicating and also concerning the main ideas and concrete projects for possible solutions, in the Roma inclusion policy of the European Union in the frame of the Open Method of Coordination, which has been introduced within the Lisbon Strategy, linked to the idea of lifelong learning. She considers the realisation of these policy measures at national, regional and local levels to have shown only unsatisfactory results until now.