The thesis addresses some possible causes of present-day issues related to low academic achievement among Roma children in Slovak schools. Specifically, the study explores classroom interactional patterns in two public schools and the ways in which discursive practices among students and teachers support or thwart the integration of Roma students.

The comparative analysis shows the link between spatial and academic marginalization of Roma students through classroom language use and reveals Roma students' divergence from the expected manner of participation in a classroom discourse organized into Initiation-Response-Evaluation sequences in culture- and gender-specific ways. Observations of discursive practices in the classroom designated to facilitate Roma students' academic improvement indicate that the materialization of the “question” concerning what pedagogical practices would help Roma students' improve their academic skills was in effect reduced to the problem of slow learners and children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, ignoring the dimension of Roma students' specific culture.