Country of residence

Hungary

Brief introduction

Senios Research Advisor, Institute of Sociology, HAS Senior Research Fellow, Center for Policy Studies, Central European University

Education

DSc in Sociology, 2007, Awarding institution: Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Academic profile

In the past decade, Júlia Szalai’s  research has focused on comparative studies in poverty and social exclusion; struggles for  recognition and redistribution of ethnic minorities, with a particular emphasis on Roma; comparative history of social policy, contribution of the intersecting relations of class, race/ethnicity, and gender to inequalities in participation in education, labour, and access to the redistribution of welfare. She acted as Principal Investigator in the EDUMIGROM research project (FP7, 2008-2011) that compared ethnic differences in education and their implications on longer-term prospects of urban youth in multi-ethnic communities in nine, „old” and „new” member states of the European Union. She has been actively involved in a range of East-West comparative investigations on gender and culture; social movements; citizenship and minority rights; variations in welfare regimes and their impacts on ethnic minorities. She is experienced both in survey-related quantitative research and qualitative approaches to communities, families and individuals. Together with colleagues in the EDUMIGROM-collective, she has contributed to the development of a new conceptualization and typology of minority ethnic adolescents’ personal and collective identities.

Publications

• Szalai, J. (ed.) (2010) Being ‘Visibly Different’: Experiences of Second-generation Migrant and Roma Youths at School. Budapest: Central European University, Center for Policy Studies.
• Szalai, J. (2010): A szabadságtalanság bővülő körei: A iskolai szegregáció társadalmi ‘értelméről’[The disenfranchised: on the ‘benefits’ to be gained by school segregation]. Esély, Vol. 21, No. 3 (June), pp. 3-23.
• Szalai, J. (2008) “Cultural Otherness” or the Ethnicisation of Poverty? Some Considerations on How Postcommunist Welfare Reforms Affect Hungary’s Roma Minority. In: Reconciling Migrants’ Well-Being and the Public Interest: Welfare State, Firms and Citizenship in Transition. (Eds.: Farrell, Gilda – Oliveri, Federico). Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 2008, pp. 159-183.

Keywords

Roma, inequalities, poverty, welfare

Contact

szalai.julia@chello.hu browse members list