The conspiracy theory according to which the authorities will separate Romanian children from their families is presented as the hidden purpose of a survey organized in the context of a testing addressing 8th-graders.
Healthy family background, under scrutiny again
NEWS: “Additionally, children are forbidden from taking pictures of the forms that need to be filled in directly on laptops, and they are warned they cannot refuse to answer the questions. Basically, they are forced to stay in classrooms and provide data to an unknown person who sneaks inside while the teacher is not there, an individual who refuses to disclose his identity or mention the institution he legally represents. Parents are not informed beforehand about the presence of unknown people in schools, nor about the forms on the laptops. They only know about TIMMS and their children’s obligation to submit to a mathematics quiz. The obligation to take the TIMMS exam was later denied by the Education Ministry. Sources with the school inspectorate say they have no information or data about these events. The “interrogation” of underage children occurred in the absence of their parents or their legally appointed guardians, as the law stipulates in such cases. But…who cares? This was the first step towards separating children from their parents. All children with “non-compliant” parents will next be rounded up and taken away”.
NARRATIVES: 1. The Romanian state has started compiling a database of children who will be separated from their parents. 2. The authorities are building the first detention camp for children who will be taken away from their families in Suceava.
BACKGROUND: The idea of Romanian children getting separated from their families has been circulated for a while in the local public sphere, taking on various forms. In January, the independent senator Diana Şoşoacă launched a hypothesis that is part of a broader narrative built around the separation of children from their parents by force, rooted in the nationalist conservative propaganda, fueled for years by Moscow. However, this narrative also overlaps with other disinformation themes of conspiracy theories such as PizzaGate and QAnon. They were adapted to the local specificity, also in the cases of Sorina Săcărin’s adoption and the story of Romanian children getting separated from their parents in Norway. Elements of this thesis were also used by Russian war propaganda, which claims that thousands of Ukrainian children are sold in the West, in order to cover up their actual abduction and deportation to Russia. In early May, a far-reaching protest staged by the party AUR, officially targeted against the poor results of the government in Bucharest, escalated into a demonstration of absurd demands, one of which is related to this theory.
PURPOSE: To undermine societal trust in the authorities and the entire political class, to demonize the West, promote sovereigntist rhetoric as well as xenophobic and racist attitudes, as well as to stir up and amplify social unrest.
School results and influencing factors
WHY THE NARRATIVE ARE FALSE: Starting 1995, Romania has been taking part in TIMSS surveys, a form of testing focusing on mathematics and science. The exams are held every four years in order to document longer-term performances of participant education systems. They consist of two phases: the testing of pupils per se and a four-part survey: a questionnaire for the school board, one for the math teacher, one for the science teacher and another one for pupils, all part of the survey. For further clarification, we spoke to the deputy head of the TIMSS National Center, PhD Vlad Burtăverde, a lecturer with the Psychology and Education Science Faculty at University of Bucharest, the institution that takes charge of TIMSS testing in Romania. Vlad Burtăverde assured us that TIMSS methodology is standard, meaning every participant country undergoes the same procedure, so that results make sense. Prior to the children’s participation in the survey, their parents are notified regarding the two stages of the exam, the testing proper and the survey, and their consent covers both aspects. Vlad Burtăverde argues that “aside from the math and science test, each pupil also fills in this Home context questionnaire, with questions about their living context, which also matters in the analyses and reports conducted as a follow-up to the project in each country. In other words, it’s pointless to assess pupils’ school performance only, without knowing the “predictors”, namely the causes that lead to a high or low performance. In order to capture these undertones, the testing also seeks to establish whether school performance is influenced by the social and economic background of children, their parents’ education level and other factors. What is really important to know is that the data is not analyzed on a nominal basis, but based on samples and countries. In standard databases, a fictional pupil named “Ionuț Popescu” is marked with a numeric ID, not under his real name, and the testing and questionnaires are anonymous.” In this context, the coordinators of TIMSS testing in Romania have no access to instruments that can modify or influence the testing procedure, as the forms are exclusively online, generated by the IEA – the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, Vlad Burtăverde also told us. The Romanian lecturer also explained how children are asked to identify their gender: “They have to choose between boy, girl or other, which are the standard choices of the inclusive approach used in a number of states in order to prevent the discrimination of sexual minorities, nothing else”.
Basically, this conspiracy theory is ridden with argumentative fallacies as well as with xenophobic and racist (“Mestization is virtually underway. We already have mixed marriages”) or false and discriminatory remarks (“Rich families now bear an increasing number of children with a reduced intellect, sickly or psychologically deranged”). The building of a day care center for children at risk of being separated from their parents in Suceava County is not aimed at separating children from “non-compliant” parents, but quite the opposite. These centers are meant to support families to care for and raise their children. They operate much like after-school centers, which are already commonplace in the public system under the “School after school” programme. In practical terms, after school hours, children will be given a warm meal and caring from specialists, classes adapted to their age. They will do their homework and receive psychological counselling. In the evening, they return home to their families in order to avoid school dropout or cases where children end up in foster care due to poverty. Such day care centers have been operating all over Romania for years. They are funded and operated both by state authorities as well as by private organizations, from NGOs (which the ultraconservative propaganda claims they are part of the global cabal) to churches and other Christian foundations.
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