New book explores Gypsy, Roma and Traveller experiences at university

A new Routledge collection brings together academics, students, graduates and community members to ask why Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people remain largely invisible in universities, and what institutions need to change.

Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers in Higher Education: Contemporary Critical Perspectives has been published by Routledge.

Edited by Julia Morgan, Hazel Marsh and Colin Clark, the collection brings together academics, practitioners, students, graduates and community members, including personal accounts from Gypsy, Roma, Traveller and Showmen contributors.

The book looks at the barriers that continue to shape educational opportunities and experiences, and challenges the idea that low participation can be explained by community attitudes or aspirations. Instead, it points to racism, historical exclusion, economic insecurity and unequal opportunities in schools and universities.

“The responsibility for change cannot rest with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities alone,” the editors write. “It must also rest with the universities that have historically excluded them.”

Chapters cover Romani history, partnerships between universities and communities, whiteness, experiences of compulsory schooling, the “neoliberal university”, widening participation, distance learning, career guidance, decolonisation and community cultural wealth.

Read the editors’ blog, Rethinking Gypsy, Roma and Traveller participation in higher education.

Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers in Higher Education: Contemporary Critical Perspectives was published by Routledge in October 2026. 

[Book cover image C: Daniel Baker]

[Feature image C: paseidon via Pixabay]

Shannon Casey for Travellers Times