Conference Program

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.

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.