Conference Program

In recent years, the need to respond to the growing cultural complexity of schools has led to the explicit formulation of the concept of intercultural competence, replacing a more generic reflection on interculturality and its related practices. Intercultural competence is conceived both as an educational objective addressed to students, as future citizens, and—prior to that—as a set of professional skills required of teachers, who are called upon to operate in contexts characterized by a plurality of forms of belonging that go far beyond geographical origin or migratory experience (Contini, 2023).

Over time, this need has led to the development of various training tools within the social sciences. The contribution presented here is situated within this perspective and introduces the cultural shock method developed by social psychologist Margalit Cohen‑Emerique in the field of social work, drawing on the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954). Observing the difficulties faced by practitioners in integrating anthropological knowledge transmitted by experts into their everyday professional practice, the scholar emphasized the need to conceive alternative training approaches based on non‑hierarchical learning processes and rooted in participants’ lived experiences, enabling them to develop greater sensitivity in perceiving and recognizing differences.

The method invites practitioners to conceptualize the analysis of experiences of emotional and/or cognitive disorientation occurring in helping relationships as an opportunity for decentering with respect to their implicit representations. Only after this initial stage of awareness of the relativity of one’s own point of view is it possible to move on to questioning the interlocutor’s frame of reference, understood as that of a concrete individual rather than the expression of an ethnic or national culture, and finally to negotiation. This phase focuses on the search for concrete solutions aimed at addressing specific problems, rather than remaining at a value‑based or ideological level.

Although the Italian translation of Cohen‑Emerique’s works (2016, 2017) has contributed to the dissemination of the cultural shock method within social work, its application remains limited, and its potential does not appear to have been fully explored in related fields such as education, where a lack of systematicity in intercultural approaches persists despite the proliferation of institutional documents at multiple levels (Tarozzi, 2015; Stillo, 2020; Contini, 2023).

Drawing on research–training pathways (Asquini, 2018) carried out over the past two years with social workers, healthcare professionals, and university students at the University of Genoa, this contribution presents some results from the application of the cultural shock method and discusses its transferability to teacher training. The proposed approach aligns with empirical literature highlighting the strong demand among teachers for support in the development of reflexivity, enabling them to find—individually and together with others—their own pathways within relational contexts that are unique and situated.

In a global scenario characterized by intensified migration flows, racialized public narratives, and growing social polarization, democratic education cannot be conceived separately from intercultural justice. This contribution presents the experience of “Casetta Rossa”, a self-managed community space located in Rome and rooted in its local urban context, where an Italian language school for migrants functions as a space for the co-construction of intercultural knowledge and democratic education practices.

The contribution is based on a qualitative case study founded on narrative and participatory approaches. Rather than analyzing the language school as a functional integration service, the study interprets it as a critical pedagogical space in which migration, citizenship, and knowledge are continuously renegotiated. Through dialogic practices and collaborative learning, the experiences of the participants, multilingual repertoires, and situated narratives are recognized as epistemic resources (Lave & Wenger, 1991). In this sense, the school challenges assimilationist models and deficit-based representations, contributing to forms of social and epistemic justice consistent with a democratic and intercultural perspective.

The experience also highlights a second complementary dimension: the implementation of active citizenship by volunteers—former teachers, retired professionals, and neighborhood residents—who serve as language facilitators. Their involvement does not simply respond to a gap in services, but constitutes a civic practice through which individuals reposition themselves in the public sphere. Teaching Italian becomes a relational and political act, fostering intergenerational dialogue, mutual recognition, and shared responsibility. Both migrants and local residents thus participate in democratic learning processes that reshape their understanding of belonging and collective life.

Building on Appadurai's (1996) notion of locality as socially produced and dynamically negotiated, the paper argues that such grassroots educational practices generate emerging public spaces where alternative modes of urban citizenship can take shape. These spaces function as everyday infrastructures of democracy, where intercultural dialogue is not reduced to rhetoric but is realized through embodied encounters, negotiation of differences, and shared problem solving (Biesta, 2011; Amin, 2002). By placing intercultural education within lived urban practices, the contribution proposes a model of democratic education that goes beyond abstract references to diversity. The case of "Casetta Rossa" suggests that democratic and intercultural education takes shape in situated, relational, and conflict-aware contexts, where knowledge is co-constructed and citizenship is exercised collectively. Community-led language schools can therefore be understood as transformative spaces that connect migration, social justice, and democratic participation in concrete and meaningful ways.

In a context marked by intensified migratory flows, processes of racialization, and the polarization of public discourse, interculturality is assumed as a constitutive dimension of a substantive and situated democracy. This contribution adopts a critical stance that goes beyond the rhetoric of “diversity” and situates social and intercultural justice as a framework for meaning and action, illuminating the power asymmetries that cross bodies, borders, and forms of knowledge (Catarci & Fiorucci, 2015; Tarozzi & Torres, 2016; Aman, 2017).

From this perspective, non-formal education (NFE) is understood as an intentional, flexible, and contextual pedagogical-political space capable of generating transformative learning through dialogic and participatory practices (Schugurensky, 2020; Romi & Schmida, 2019). It is rooted in Dewey’s idea of experience as the matrix of knowledge and democracy as a form of associated living (Dewey, 1916/1938), in Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (1984), and in Freire’s emancipatory pedagogy founded on dialogue, conscientization, and praxis (Freire, 1970/2018).

These frameworks interweave with key contributions from the Italian tradition of popular education. Dolci’s reciprocal maieutics (1988; 1996) highlights dialogue as a tool for shared planning and nonviolent social transformation. Lorenzetto (1963; 1994) situates adult literacy within the context of lifelong education and active citizenship, while the experiences of don Milani and don Sardelli show how the spoken word and educational relationships can become devices of dignity and empowerment within marginalised contexts.

In the European landscape, instruments for recognizing non-formal and informal learning (EQF; Cedefop 2009–2016; Eurydice, 2024) offer opportunities to valorize intercultural, relational, and civic competences developed in real-life contexts. However, challenges persist due to territorial heterogeneity, fragmented regulations, and barriers to access, particularly for vulnerable groups. Hence, integrative strategies are proposed, such as co-designing intercultural skills with communities and services, creating forms of mediation rooted in local proximity networks, and developing community-based micro-credential systems.

Three case studies highlight the operational nature of NFE as a situated practice of social justice. At the Valdocco Oratory, within the Universal Civil Service, cooperative workshops involve young people with diverse backgrounds, fostering responsibility, nonviolent conflict management, and interreligious participation. At the Matera Penitentiary Institute, artistic workshops and the production of the magazine S-catenati support identity reconnection processes for incarcerated people and migrants. Within the Reception and Integration System of the Municipality of Latina, the Theatre of the Oppressed and the workshop “Mothers Without Borders” enable migrant women and victims of trafficking to engage with performative devices of speech, self-narration, and mutual support, revealing through an intersectional lens the entanglement of gender, migrant status, and socio-economic vulnerabilities.

Building on these experiences, non-formal education emerges as a pedagogical and political space capable of generating situated learning and expanding opportunities for democratic participation, fostering the creation of intercultural and democratic environments. The educational and humanizing process that sustains it challenges traditional rigidities and hierarchies, promoting models rooted in participatory democracy, social cohesion, and attention to context.

Across Latin America, educational debates have been deeply shaped by struggles over land, language, recognition, and the democratization of knowledge (Diaz R, et al., 2009). In this context, intercultural education has developed as a political and pedagogical project connected to Indigenous movements and broader claims for social justice. In Brazil, where colonial and racial hierarchies continue to structure access to rights and educational opportunities, intercultural education is closely linked to emancipatory pedagogies and justice-oriented frameworks (Freire, 1987; Tarozzi, 2015). It represents not merely a curricular adaptation, but a transformative horizon aimed at confronting structural inequalities and epistemic subordination (Candau & Russo, 2010; Furtado et al., 2024).

This paper presents a case study of the Programa de Formação de Professores para a Diversidade Étnica (PROETNOS), developed at the State University of Maranhão (UEMA), a public university located in Northeastern Brazil. The program is dedicated to the initial education of Indigenous teachers who will work in their own community schools. It emerged in response to Indigenous political demands for differentiated schooling grounded in interculturality, bilingualism, and the right to cultural self-determination (Guerrero, 2007).

The research is situated within the interpretative qualitative paradigm (Geertz, 1973), assuming intercultural citizenship as a system of meanings constructed within educational contexts. This perspective is articulated with a Freirean critical-emancipatory framework (Freire, 1987), oriented toward examining power relations, recognition processes, and the dynamics of marginalization embedded in teacher education. Methodologically, the study is based on documentary research analyzing institutional regulations and Pedagogical Course Projects (PPC) of the intercultural undergraduate degrees offered within PROETNOS. The analysis was conducted through Content Analysis and Thematic Analysis, supported by Atlas.ti software to structure categories and identify semantic interrelations across documents.

The theoretical framework draws on critical interculturality (Walsh, 2009), distinguishing it from functional approaches that acknowledge diversity without transforming hierarchical structures (Corbetta, 2020). It also engages with reflections on curriculum transformation and pedagogical mediation (Fleuri, 2001; Fiorucci, 2020), as well as with decolonial perspectives that challenge eurocentric epistemologies and the coloniality of power within education (Tavares, 2014; Matos, 2024).

Findings reveal that PROETNOS operates within tensions between national educational regulations and Indigenous community projects. Nevertheless, it illustrates how a public university can act as a space of resistance when it reconfigures its curricular structures to incorporate Indigenous languages, epistemologies, and community participation. Rather than limiting itself to inclusion within an existing monocultural framework, the program seeks to restructure initial teacher education through a decolonial and intercultural lens (Walsh, 2009). In doing so, it contributes to a broader project of social justice that connects access, recognition, and epistemic redistribution (Tarozzi, 2015).

The case demonstrates that, in the Brazilian and Latin American context, public universities can become institutional arenas where democratic renewal, Indigenous protagonism, and curricular transformation intersect (Aguiar, 2025).

This research proposes a situated case study (Yin, 2018) at the Colombian Amazonian triple border in Leticia - next to Brazil and Peru - aiming at understanding how forms of epistemic, pedagogical, and political agency are produced among historically excluded subjects. The study analyzes the pedagogical, cultural, and institutional mediations involved in the production, circulation, and legitimation of knowledge, particularly within territorially oriented higher education programmes (Mato, 2012).

The category of “mediation” is understood as the set of mechanisms, instruments, relationships, and practices operating between subjects, knowledges, institutions, and territories, enabling or constraining knowledge (co)production and circulation. From this perspective, mediation is not conceived as a neutral process of translation, but rather as a space of epistemological dispute shaped by power relations, coloniality, and disobedience (Mignolo, 2000).

Rather than approaching the territory as exceptional or “exotic,” this research treats it as a significant case capable of illuminating principles that are transferable to other border and migration contexts. In particular, it seeks to rethink pedagogy beyond restricted notions of “interculturality,” often reduced to multicultural or inclusion-based frameworks. Instead, pedagogy is conceptualized as a formative process oriented toward knowledge coproduction, autonomy, emancipation, and social transformation, especially for subjects experiencing systemic oppression (Escobar, 2020; Walsh, 2009; hooks, 2021).

The study is situated within the fields of critical pedagogy, critical interculturality, and decolonial pedagogy. It engages with the tradition of engaged sociology and Latin American emancipatory education, particularly the contributions by Orlando Fals Borda (2015), Paulo Freire (2008), Carlos António Brandão (2003). It also draws on scholarship on sociocultural mediations and decolonial epistemologies to examine how institutional and political conditions structure access to and recognition of knowledge in higher education (Mato, 2012).

Methodologically, the research adopts a qualitative approach based on case study and Participatory Action Research (PAR) (Yin, 2018; Fals Borda & Rahman, 1991). Data collection combines in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and document analysis. Fieldwork is organized in three phases: an initial exploratory stage; a more extended and in-depth phase; and a final stage focusing on restitution of findings and community dialogue, oriented toward collective projection and action.

The case presented is linked to the Universidad Nacional de Colombia’ Special Admissions Programme with a Territorial Approach aimed at young people, including members of Indigenous communities. This allows for examining how generational, pedagogical, and institutional mediations operate within a transborder Amazonian context.

The project seeks to contribute to rethinking pedagogy in crossborder settings (Anzaldúa, 2016) beyond frameworks of inclusion or hospitality, recognizing historically oppressed subjects as epistemic and political actors and proposing transferable principles for higher education and social transformation in other crossborder and migratory contexts.

In the EU Roma Strategic Framework for Equality, Inclusion and Participation 2020–2030, the European Union has identified several strategic areas within which Member States are called upon to act in order to improve the living conditions of Roma and Sinti populations and promote their effective social inclusion. The three fundamental pillars of the framework concern equality, inclusion, and participation of Roma communities.

However, the historical relationship between majority societies and Romani populations has long been marked by deeply rooted prejudices that have contributed to constructing a cultural opposition between “us” and “them” (Bravi, 2009; Burgio, 2015). This relationship has largely been monological. Drawing on the distinction between the I–Thou and I–It relations elaborated by Martin Buber, Roma and Sinti communities have often been reduced to objects of social representation rather than recognized as fully legitimate interlocutors within the public sphere.

The outcomes of this marginalizing relationship are documented in numerous reports. European data present a critical picture: although Roma and Sinti communities constitute the largest ethnic minority in Europe—estimated at between 10 and 12 million people (European Commission, 2020)—they continue to experience significant forms of marginalization. In the city of Rome, such marginalization is spatially configured through the presence of Roma camps and peripheral urban areas and is also reflected in processes of identity representation, both subjective and collective.

The Romani populations remains exposed to multiple and intersecting forms of exclusion and discrimination operating across different domains: educational (early school leaving and limited educational opportunities), social (employment, housing, and economic conditions), and political (citizenship and social recognition). These dynamics contribute to a condition of multidimensional marginality.

Within this context, the role played by organizations and association operating at the local level becomes particularly significant, as they perform several functions, including an educational one. The aim of this contribution is to present the experience developed by Rampa Prenestina, a cultural and social promotion association that, since 2013, has been active in the eastern area of the city of Rome, promoting non-formal educational activities connected to the social, political, and identity-related issues affecting the Roma community.

More specifically, through identity workshops and participatory theatre—conceived as a pedagogical device of subjectivation—processes of self-representation, critical re-elaboration of lived experience, and identity redefinition are fostered at both individual and collective levels, grounded in the analysis of participants’ social and identity-related needs.

In this way, young participants become active subjects in a process of conscientization (Freire, 1968/2018) generated through the theatrical experience, enabling them to articulate the meaning of their identities within the societies in which they live while promoting processes of social transformation.

Through semi-structured interviews conducted with educators from the association—of both Roma and Italian backgrounds—the study examines the approach adopted in working with young people from Roma camps. In this context, theatre and identity workshops emerge as alternative dialogical spaces within which to reflect on the politics of identity, typically articulated by subaltern and marginalized groups (hooks, 1994).

Art, in its many forms of expression, is a privileged educational tool for promoting training courses from an intercultural perspective. Its nature as a universal language allows it to transcend the cultural boundaries within which it is produced, opening up spaces for encounter and dialogue between individuals with different experiences, identities and affiliations. Like a game of mirrors, a work of art is born from the mind of the artist but, once created, it becomes an autonomous entity that lends itself to multiple interpretations, conditioned not only by the originally intended message, but also by the experience, emotional state and cultural background of the viewer.

Within this system of references, artistic products take on the characteristics of universal assets, part of humanity's heritage to be protected and passed on. Art thus becomes a space for mediation, a privileged place for encounter—and sometimes confrontation—between different cultures, religions, historical periods and social positions. Over the centuries, these encounters have generated continuous cross-fertilisation, constituting the lifeblood of artistic evolution. As Favaro and Luatti point out, “in visual art, cross-fertilisation is the encounter of elements that were originally unrelated, which coexist to give rise to new horizons of meaning” (Favaro & Luatti, 2004, p. 321). From this perspective, cross-fertilisation becomes an educational resource: “the proximity of the other, if we allow ourselves to be cross-fertilised, becomes a stimulus for the growth of each individual and for the enrichment of their identity” (Pastò, 2005, p. 131).

The experiential dimension of art, emphasised by Dewey, makes it a powerful tool for knowledge: it is inseparable from everyday life, which “intensifies the sense of immediate living” (Dewey, 1995, p. 9). Hernández also reiterates that knowledge can derive from artistic experience, understood as a genuine form of learning (Hernández, 2008, p. 90). In education, this link makes art a privileged context for developing observation, imagination, critical thinking and creative skills.

This is the backdrop against which street art has emerged, transforming itself from a marginal and often illegal practice into one of the most incisive artistic languages of our time. Unlike museum works, urban art is created in public spaces, interacts with the city and reaches a diverse and unselected audience, becoming an immediate, accessible and democratic means of communication. Banksy, in particular, emblematically represents this process: through the use of iconic, easily recognisable images charged with political and social tension, the artist has transformed local walls into global symbols. The online dissemination of his works amplifies the intercultural potential of street art, making visible issues that are shared on a global level—from inequality to migration, from armed conflict to environmental protection—and promoting the construction of a transnational collective imagination. Street art, therefore, is not only an aesthetic expression, but a universal

language capable of stimulating critical awareness, connecting different communities and confirming the role of art as a bridge between cultures, generations and experiences.

We live in a pluricultural world, composed of a mosaic of societies that possess their own ways of life, languages, arts, histories, and knowledge—ways of being in the world rooted in territories with which they have maintained a long-standing relationship, such that they are inextricably intertwined in what Bruno Latour terms “nature-culture.” Many of these peoples, after years of struggle against colonialism and the oppression of nation-states, have achieved conditions that allow them to preserve their way of life and have gained recognition for their cultural expressions, language, and traditions. However, in such recognitions there is often a component that is absent or mentioned only superficially: their mode of knowing—that is, the way in which knowledge is generated, transmitted, and applied within their communities—and its validity in the so-called contemporary world.

Why is this the case? The hypothesis presented here is that this phenomenon stems from the enormous prominence that science has achieved and maintained to this day through its complete integration into social life and culture. Born in the midst of the Renaissance in the burgeoning cities of Europe, science and technology soon became a central element in the domination of the rural world by the then-emerging bourgeoisie—peasants were considered “ignorant and illiterate (rustici),” as they were later in the European empires' colonization of the world, and faithfully accompanied, in the second half of the 20th century, the developmentalist theory that facilitated the persistence of these (now neocolonial) relations of domination to the present day. Its growth is due to this close relationship between science and power.

In this evolution, the attributes that characterize it have been shaped by an expansionist narrative; it is therefore, intrinsically and structurally, an institution with a marked colonial bias and neocolonial overtones. It is underpinned by robust narratives, including those used to silence dissent, as is currently the case in universities across the United States.

However, as a social construct, science is not monolithic; it bears the imprint of other perspectives—from scientists who sought to combat such bias, and from others who believed in its promises to improve the world. In short, it also reflects certain traits that have been established and maintained in the society in which we live: pluralistic, heterogeneous, with humanistic undertones, complex, and inclined to be oriented in opposition to power. It is this latter aspect that forms the basis for an intercultural dialogue of knowledge.

Even so, given its claim to truth, its scope, and its power (rooted in ubiquitous technology), it has overwhelmingly dominated all other forms of knowledge (from the humanities and the arts to the knowledge possessed by so-called non-Western peoples, including that of European peasants). To such an extent that, in most intercultural education projects, the dilemmas of how to approach science are often a stumbling block that cannot be avoided. Hence the need to decolonize science in order to decolonize knowledge in the broadest sense. This presentation offers a proposal for reflection and discussion in this regard.

This contribution concerns a scoping review as an integral part of an extensive doctoral research, which focuses on the educational experiences of people with a migrant background in Italy. The phenomenon of interest being explored is related to the meanings and interpretations that the latter attribute to their educational path, with a focus on the integration process and the key turning points. The research involves people with a migrant background who have already completed their schooling. The research questions are therefore as follows:

R1: How do young adults with a migrant background interpret their schooling experience in Italy ex post?

R2: What meanings do young adults with a migrant background who were educated in Italy attribute to the role of school in their integration process?

R3: What events or conditions had a decisive impact (turning points, if any) on the integration trajectories of young people with a migrant background?

The theoretical framework is provided by Social Justice Education (SJE), which promotes a critical approach through an interdisciplinary, intercultural and intersectional perspective. To identify the cross-cutting and recurring elements found in the literature and to identify gaps in academic research, a scoping review was conducted through the EBSCO, Scopus, and Web of Science databases employing the PRISMA method. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were based on full-text accessibility, abstract in English and sources relevant and consistent with the research. It is also worth highlighting some limitations of this systematic review, linked to language and selection biases.

The two search strings investigated are as follows:

1st: migrants AND integration AND school experiences

2nd: TI (school experiences) AND migrants AND integration

The two search strings yielded 339 results from the three platforms, reduced to 269 after removing duplicates (n=70). After reviewing the abstracts and removing articles that are not fully accessible (n=245), 24 articles were identified for full analysis. The articles resulting from the search were sorted through the Software Zotero. The analysis of the articles is still ongoing. So far, at least four recurring and cross-cutting themes can be identified in the selected contributions:

• In the process of constructing otherness, school norms and customs tend to reproduce implicit models of ethnic belonging that favor the majority population. Some studies highlight how students with a migrant background develop hybrid identities;

• Language and daily interactions in schools can become vehicles for stereotypes and processes of symbolic exclusion of students with a migrant background, particularly toward so-called “racialized” individuals;

• Several studies highlight how teachers’ expectations can be influenced by stereotypes linked to students’ migrant origins. It should be noted, however, that some teachers have also played a positive, supportive role in students’ educational journey;

• Students with a migrant background experience both explicit and implicit forms of discrimination. Nevertheless, they also develop coping strategies and forms of resilience, thanks in part to family support.

To sum up, achievement or failure at school for people with migrant background is the result of multiple interconnected levels bearing in mind the intersection of ethnicity, social class, gender and migrant status.

Criteria and competences important for the intercultural pedagogical-educational perspective

are fundamental in the way of conceiving and experiencing both national and

international adoption within the family and beyond. Decentralisation, observation,

listening, dialogue and gradualness can be applied to the specificities of the adoption

experience, calling on affectively and educationally significant adults to welcome the

peculiarities of the children. Transitioning from the initial mutual estrangement to relationships

characterised by intimacy, familiarity, feelings of mutual belonging, without

concealing the origins in different human and cultural contexts. This contribution focuses

on aspects of this important field by means of a theoretical reflection that has been

developed thanks to a prolonged research experience that made it possible to collect

through semi-structured and in-depth interviews testimonies of parents and especially of

young people of different origins adopted in Italy.