Practice of intercultural education

1. Practice of intercultural education learning native language Alessandra Deiana University of Pisa

2. Every year Dossier Caritas/ migrantes supplies the number of regular immigrants who move to Italy. • At the end of 2008 resident foreigners were 3,891,295, but considering regular presences which were not registered at the registry office the number reached 4,330,000. • The number of immigrants was calculated to be about 7,2%.

3. Origin and local figuers of immigrants Origin of immigrants Local figures

4. More than one fifth of the foreign population consisted of children (862,453), five percentage points higher than the number of Italian minors. • During the school 2008 / 2009, pupils, children of foreign parents, rose to 628,937 out of an enrolled total of 8,943,796, with an incidence of 7 %. The highest incidence was at the elementary school level where an incidence of 8.3% was recorded. • Therefore immigration is a demographic resource for the Italian population which is now growing steadily.

5. Intercultural education • To define intercultural education, we have to conceive education as a relation among cultures, either individuals have different ethnic- cultural roots or the same roots. • The aim is that individuals with different linguistic, religious, ethnic roots can live together without or less social conflicts, in attempt to safeguard the pluralism. • the state must face the matter of social diversity through decision pertaining to education and welfare policy, wondering about formality of acceptance or exclusion and courses of inclusion which is put to use by immigrants.

6. The educational perspective: rules and didactic measures • In Italy this perspective is deeply rooted in: 1- The article 3 of Italian constitution, which asserts: “All citizens have equal social status and are equal before the law, without regard to their sex, race, language, religion, political opinions, and personal or social conditions. It is the duty of the Republic to remove all economic and social obstacles that, by limiting the freedom and equality of citizens, prevent full individual development and the participation of all workers in the political, economic, and social organization of the country.” 2- The UNESCO’s document entitles “Declaration on race and racial prejudice”, which affirms: “Convinced that all peoples and all human groups, whatever their composition or ethnic origin, contribute according to their own genius to the progress of the civilizations and cultures which, in their plurality and as a result of their interpenetration, constitute the common heritage of mankind.” Reporting to above- mentioned articles, the intercultural education accounts the side of every community to protect his cultural estate as inviolable. At the same time, respect and protection of diversity must be carried out by a perspective of encounter and listening, rendering exchange as matter of daily life.

7. The roll of school • The school, as protected place of growth, has to cope with most sensitive themes concerning intercultural, in a most suitable manner. • Italian laws: • underline need to assure, to foreign pupil, equal opportunities of learning and inclusion; • Attribute duty to form an intercultural society to the entire institutional organ; • Affirm that the intercultural education is adopted as a struttural condition of the modern society. • Consider intercultural perspective as the most suitable instrument to surpass ethnocentric visions. Therefore, educational process, with an intercultural emphasis, is an obliged stage of scholastic way

8. Concept of “culture” have to be revisited: it is not supposed to be as closed and no-protean system but it is a human product, which can undergo variations, in view of comparisons with new cultures. • educational interventions, turned towards to promote social responsibility and off-center point of view. • School, to move in an intercultural perspective, has not to introduce a new matter, instead a new perspective which goes through the teaching, revisiting objects, methods and contents.

9. Rool of the teacher • In this point of view, the teacher has a fundamental responsibility; he/she is the “magister vitae”: he/she has to commit him /her daily, to avoid prejudices and discriminations to arise within the class and to fight dynamics of isolation towards pupils who are considered as “different”. • Among measures concerning education, rules emphasizes on the necessity to create courses and initiatives, facing to learning the Italian language aside of foreign minors and adults. • On the other hand, laws concerning immigrations provides school obligation for all minors attending in Italy.

10. The cultural mediator • learning language is the first step for the immigrant, to get into the new social structure. • Alongside learning Italian, it is important for immigrants to keep culture and language of mother country. • The cultural mediator absolves this task, being tie both with origin nation and landing stage. Therefore, the mediator is an invisible bridge which connects immigrants with his/her country, but his /her intercultural roll states that she/he facilitates dialogue and exchange among cultures.

11. Essential lines of intercultural pedagogy • The intercultural pedagogy is meant as possibility of dialogue and equal comparison, not forcing involved subjects to renounce to significant shares of own life. • It is appropriate to refer to elements-guide: • 1- The ones, who work in scholar contexts, must struggle to create necessary conditions to create relations of integrations between people who arrive from afar and who steadily live in a place; • 2- The interaction, which became established among immigrants and host society, can function if both set themselves as open systems; • 3- It is important to recognize positive value of mixture and encounter which are originated by movements of individuals; • 4- The pedagogy must take one’s place in opposition to any position which claims “purity of race”; • 5- School and extra school educators must not retain that relationships between “we” and “others” are obvious, seeking to create positive formative process.

12. Practice of intercultural education: Al Alif association • During 1997, Al Alif association was established in Pisa with the purpose to promote several aspect of Arab culture. • Later on, this association has undertaken interventions which are intended to make possible integration of immigrants in Pisa and Province. • Coming in contact with immigrant world, it has chosen, as field of intervention, to teach Italian as second language. • This type of choice is given by conviction that language barrier is the most difficult obstacle to inclusion of foreign citizens inside Italian social fabric.

13. Nausicaa project • The Nausicaa project was originated by consideration of data concerning presence of immigrant pupil in the schools situated in Pisa’s Province. • The project set itself different objectives: • Inclusion of non-EU minority in the educational system with cares and specific supports which are realized to facilitate welcome and right of education; • Teaching of Italian as second language, since it is considered as a fundamental moment in the construction of interlinguistic intercultural communication, essential to support insertion of non- Italian pupils; • Development of origin language and native culture, realizing trough a general approach of intercultural education and use of native speaker mediators.

14. To realize these aims, the project carried out interventions which were coordinated by linguistic mediators and linguistic facilitator. • The meeting and recess of involved operators produced following objectives: • Intercultural self-formation of teachers by means of knowledge of immigrant culture; • Drawing up of a biographical profile for each of pupils, to project an educational personalized solution. • Attainment of new duties in teaching concerning linguistics which are necessary to surpass problem of bilingualism

15. Users who were involved: • Since January 2002 to March 2002: Chinese pupils at “ Istituto comprensivo Toniolo” (Pisa, Italy); • Since November 2001 to January 2002: a Chinese student at “Istituto Tecnico Pacinotti” (Pisa); • Since March 2002 to June 2002: 3 pupils : the first Pole, the second Albanian and the last Arab at “ Istituto Tecnico Pacinotti” • The project was financed by “Istituzione centro Nord Sud della Provincia di Pisa”

16. Progetto pilota L1/ L2 • Anyway within the expectation of this experience, it can be inscribed “ progetti pilota L1 e L2”( Pilot Projects L1 and L2) which was organized by “Istituzione Centro Nord Sud”. • The “ progetto pilota L1 e L2”, in addition to above-mentioned objectives ( formation of teachers, teaching of Italian language and interventions concerning intercultural and interlinguistic mediation), counted to recover native language of immigrant pupil (L1). • This had the aim to control previous duties which had to be reinforced in order to facilitate attainment of second language (L2).

17. Practise • Following a rash of meeting with teachers, access test were administered to students, with the intent to check levels of linguistic competences and to form mini classes (max 15 students). • The approach, didactic and communicative, gave place to development of oral and unwritten abilities, which allowed the exchanges of information in the daily life and the insertion in the class. • In addition to use of existing didactic materials (illustrated dictionaries, or “alfabetiere”), new materials were created, in replay to stimulus of pupils. • The “alfabetiere” is composed by series of drawings from which pupil can obtained relative alphabetical signs , with a deduction

18. Results • As regards expectations, gained results weren’t satisfactory. • In part the reason was organizational because, against increase of courses, there is a drastic reduction of number of hours for single course. • In second place, the barrier of specific language of single disciplines, as Math, was not surpassed. • Finally, it occurred struttural scarcity, as of linguistic laboratories and spaces designed for teaching of L2.

19. suggestion • In regard to groups, which operate on didactic interventions, it is to be hoped to elaborate of common didactic instrument, through bigger coordination and exchanges of experiences amongst teachers. • “Progetto Nausicaa” and “Pilota L1 L2” were the answers to growing and urgent phenomenon, that is: to assure continuity to these interventions in all considered schools, because it is possible to weigh up results in course of time.

20. conclusions • Living in a variegated society compounded by different cultural groups, the intercultural education is the answer to integration of minority groups. • To put this in to effect, it is necessary to leave essential requirement that all culture must be place on the same normative footing, excluding facilitations. • Beyond, it is important to exclude the possibility of full assimilation of foreign pupils, but the receiving society has to give possibility to keep cultural features, which will lead to “selective assimilation”. • The school is the institution which has to undertake the duty to create a society where differences are not seen as obstacles but rather as possibility of increase and growth.