BOOK REVIEW: ROMA MINORITY YOUTH ACROSS CULTURAL CONTEXTS. TAKING A POSITIVE APPROACH TO RESEARCH, POLICY, AND PRACTICE

The 2021 volume “Roma Minority Youth Across Cultural Contexts Taking a Positive Approach to Research, Policy, and Practice” edited by Radosveta Dimitrova, David L. Sam, and Laura Ferrer- Wreder, published at Oxford University Press, provides one of the most comprehensive to date research collections on Roma youth in Europe from a positive youth development framework. As a recurring challenge on Europe's human security agenda, the question of tackling the various marginalization (racial, cultural, educational, and financial) suffered by Roma youth is usually approached from a deficit-model perspective. The book at hand proposes an assets-centered approach, which functions under the premise that all youth have assets and resources which they can mobilize for their development. The wide range of empirical data collected from European countries under this overarching theoretical framework is a valuable tool for policymakers and researchers alike. The book is notable for its policy implications in the field of Roma integration, as well as through its theory testing by extending PYD models to minority, non-mainstream populations