H.19. University Students with Migrant Backgrounds: Rethinking Educational Justice and Democratic Inclusion

Global mobility has reshaped the sociocultural composition of societies. Universities too are increasingly shaped by the presence of international students, students in mobility, and students with migration backgrounds.

Against this backdrop, our panel aims to stimulate debate on the university’s role as a space for negotiating equality and difference, and as a strategic arena for developing inclusive, democratic practices that recognize all students as agents of change.

Universities are both places of learning and spaces where opportunities for social mobility are created (Curl et al. 2017), offering possibilities for active citizenship and emancipation, yet also carrying the risk of reproducing disadvantage at the intersection of race, gender, class, and cultural capital (Reay et al. 2005).

Research in Italy (Bertozzi 2018) shows that the experiences of university students with migration backgrounds are marked by tensions between individual aspirations and structural conditions. These experiences are crucial for understanding how educational inequalities work in practice and how diversity is negotiated and transformed in the everyday lives of new generations, raising urgent questions about social and educational justice, intercultural citizenship, and democracy.

We welcome Italian and international contributions addressing these issues from theoretical and empirical perspectives. Potential topics include:

-       Quantitative analyses of student populations at national and/or university levels

-       Experiences of access, participation, and academic achievement

-       Structural, cultural, and linguistic barriers

-       Patterns of segregation in study programs and students’ trajectories

-       Future expectations and their intersection with identity and belonging

-       Policies and good practices of inclusion, support, and mentoring.