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Conference Program

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

G.16. Challenging Educational Inequality Through Alternative : Thinking In Comics Visual Narrative and Hip Hop Pedagogical Frameworks,
Location: Scienze Politiche (CU002): Aula XII (Multimediale)

Convenor(s): Veronica Moretti (Università di Bologna, Italy); Stefano Ratti (University of Bologna, Italy); Pamela Jofre (University of Valparaiso, Chile); Juan Pablo Gigoux (University of Valparaiso, Chile); Martina Consoloni (University of Bologna, Italy)

Presentation 5

„Chi sono io, con permesso?“: The Educational Potential of Graphic Novels for Narratives of Migration, Identity and Citizenship in Teaching Italian as a Foreign Language

Stefanie Faustmann

Masarykova Univerzita, Czech Republic (Czechia)

This paper explores the potential of graphic novels for culturally reflective, mediation-oriented education in the contexts of migration, identity negotiation and democratic participation. Focusing on Italiana, con permesso (Ben Mohamed, 2025), it analyses the portrayal of the author's experiences of migration, multilingualism, religious affiliation and social positioning in Italy. The protagonist's story illustrates how issues of belonging, cultural identity and social participation are negotiated within migrant communities. The study also investigates how visual narratives can engage learners with experiences of migration and plural identities.

Assuming that narrative and visual representations can make complex social realities more accessible, this paper presents how graphic novels can serve as educational resources that promote global citizenship and reflection on democratic values and social participation in Italian language classes for foreign learners (Zadra & Bartoli-Kucher, 2023). Visual narratives empower learners to critically engage with diverse perspectives on migration and social belonging (Spadaro, 2020).

The theoretical framework integrates culturally reflective learning and the mediation concept of the CEFR Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020), which emphasises linguistic, social, and cultural mediation within multilingual societies. Global citizenship education offers a perspective through which to critically consider social diversity, migration experiences and democratic participation (UNESCO, 2014; Zadra & Bartoli-Kucher, 2023).

Using selected scenes from Italiana, con permesso, this paper demonstrates how belonging, discrimination, identity negotiations, and social expectations are visually and narratively presented. This highlights the potential for critical, reflective, dialogical, and mediation-oriented learning processes (Bartoli-Kucher, 2025). Therefore, graphic novels can be used as educational resources to foster democratic values, social responsibility and active citizenship in foreign language teaching.