An exploration of social representations of the Roma woman in Italy and Brazil: Psychosocial anchoring to emotional reactions

Abstract This study investigates the content of the system of representations of Roma women as they emerge from a free-association task, collected from a sample of university students in Italy and Brazil. Available data on the situation of Roma women show that they experience greater social exclusion than the Roma men and the women of the majority community, especially in accessing employment, education, health and social services. The sample consists of 643 participants (mean age 22.9), 50.4% of whom are Italians and 74.3% female. Data were collected via a free-association task, the prompt word being “Gypsy woman”. SPAD-T software ran a lexical correspondence analysis, extracting two factors. We defined the first axis: “The mysterious Roma woman vs. The Outcast Roma woman”, and the second axis: “The seer Roma woman vs. Different sides of Roma woman”. Moreover, psychosocial anchoring to the emotional reactions towards Roma people was studied, showing how different groups of individuals, characterized by specific emotional reactions to Roma people, were attuned to certain social representations of the Roma woman. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of the role played by Roma women in traditional Roma and western societies.