Senior Researcher at Palacky University Olomouc
she/her/hers
About
Antonie Dvorakova's research involves vulnerable, indigenous, and racialized populations, which often live in socio-economically disadvantaged environments and circumstances typically associated with social pathology. In her interdisciplinary work, Dr. Dvorakova employs innovative approaches from the fields of cultural psychology, Indigenous Nations studies and the broader field of comparative human development towards studying resilience and well-being among individuals who exhibited remarkable persistence and success in transcending various adversities, trauma and marginalization. This work has been untangling how socio-cultural differences affect and at the same time are affected by unlike historically based developments in selected socio-cultural and political contexts.
Because truly effective interventions must be built on the personal perspectives of those they strive to aid, Dr. Dvorakova studies how culturally responsive education can be built on the culturally specific worldviews and lifeways salient in different ethnic minority and Indigenous Nations communities. Because structural and systemic conditions that create inequalities impede personality development and educational attainment, the ultimate goal of her research is finding ways to facilitate diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging throughout the whole educational system.
Dr. Dvorakova has long-term experience in management of both quantitative and qualitative research projects, acting both independently and as a member of international research teams, including the ,ost recent collaboration with colleagues from Northumbria University towards research findings to facilitate equal educational opportunities for members of Roma communities in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic.
Current Work:
To escape racial violence and discrimination, many Roma people moved from the Czech Republic (CR) to the United Kingdom (UK) in the 1990s. Using an interdisciplinary, phenomenological approach, I will conduct in-depth, personal interviews with Roma people with higher education degrees, whose life-chances improved significantly as a result of their migration. Compared with similar data recently collected in the CR, and complemented by a documentary review of relevant policies and practices in the UK and the CR, the findings will highlight the strategies that members of Roma populations use to engage in education, together with the institutional and policy strategies used to support this. This research will combine approaches from the fields of ethnic studies, sociology, education and, crucially, cultural psychology to explore how structural and systemic conditions that create inequalities impede resilience, and how the positive potential of Roma cultures and identities can be promoted.
The study will contribute to the counter-balancing of the large body of deficit-focused literature, which at times pathologizes members of marginalised groups. It will use an intersectionality lens to its analysis, and draw on cultural psychology to improve understanding and conceptualization of resilience in Roma communities.
By working towards improvement of educational attainment of marginalised persons, which, in turn, enhances their employment prospects and ultimately attainment of professional success in positions where the Roma are most underrepresented, this project will contribute to inclusion and equity in employment. The research will also enable UK education professionals to better understand their students’ socio-cultural backgrounds, and it will support higher education institutions across Europe in promoting diversity.
Research Area Keyword(s):
Cultural psychology; ethnographical sociology; Native American/American Indian/Indigenous Nations of the US; ethnic minority; higher education
