Second-generation migrants, education and multiculturalism in the pandemic era: the challenges for the school system and the local communities in Italy

The COVID emergency has focused attention on the issue of educational poverty in Italy, highlighting how it has its roots in a wider crisis of education and cultural policies in the country . Over time, various efforts have been made to include and support the academic success for all pupils but it is clear that, today, the Italian school encounters difficulty in offering equal educational opportunities. Diversity, in particular negative stereotypes on migrant people, has been a factor that strongly impact the educational trajectories of students in the most fragile position by creating or reinforcing gaps and inequalities at the economic, social, cultural, linguistic and gender levels . Data on delay and school dropout of students with a migrant background reflect the difficult situation to which they are exposed in particular during adolescence (I and II grade of the secondary schools) . This phenomenon also has effects on the general level of equal opportunities in Italy and on present and future social cohesion. In the case of the children of immigrants, their foreign origin together with the racial factor adds up with the transmission intergenerational of inequalities. Towards them the dominant discourse often maintains that the eventual difficulties and scholastic failures are due to their “cultural distance”, to their “lack of (linguistic, cultural, social etc.) skills”, to their low socio-economic status or the alleged disengagement in the education of themselves or their families. Sometimes the school system treats them with the “foreign student” filter as a problem, using racial labels that prefigure their school career . School policies also play a role: just to list some examples, we can point to the overall national organization of the education system including the teaching modalities and the achievements’ assessment system, the biased teachers’ expectations, the functioning of each specific school, the segregation phenomena produced by the choices to concentrate students of foreign origin in some classes to keep native students in the same school (even if forbidden by law, it is still unfortunately happening), the inclusion of migrant children in classes lower than their chronological age (allegedly “due” to their not perfect knowledge of the Italian language), in general, the language policies, etc. At the same time, school as an institution can have an impact in reversing/interrupting the cycle of prejudice-discrimination-social disadvantage when it succeed in offering equal educational opportunities . In order to have this transformational effect, educational institutions cannot limit their intervention to an internal review of approaches and didactic strategies or teaching materials: schools must be considered as a total social environment in continuous osmosis with the surrounding society and, as such, must take into account the social environments in which it operates, imbued with inequalities and prejudices . Taking into account this point of view, the essay will briefly illustrate the condition of migrant students - children of immigrants in Italy and the results of a series of focus group with them on the topic of school and education. To conclude, it will illustrate some ideas and indications emerged from the field research with the youngsters with a migration background regarding how to make school a more inclusive place and a more effective promoter of equal opportunities for all.