Panel F.05 — Intercultural natives: how to promote the citizenship starting from early childhood education and care
Convenors Massimiliano Fiorucci (Università Roma Tre, Italy); Veronica Riccardi (Università Roma Tre, Italy); Lisa Stillo (Università Roma Tre, Italy)
Keywords intercultural education; Integrated 0-6 system; early childhood; equity;
Research in the social sciences and the humanities has shown that the quality of educational experiences from an early age plays a main role in determining paths of effective social inclusion, school success, and acquisition of cognitive skills, all of which are essential for adult life (Stringher, 2016; Moss, 2013). In the international context, European Commission as well as UNESCO have fostered a growing interest in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in terms of rights, accessibility, achieving greater social equity, and preventing the risks of marginality. These are central issues in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015), of which the Goal 4 calls for the commitment of states to quality, and equitable and inclusive education. Indeed, having meaningful educative experiences in the 0-6 age range represents first of all a factor of protection from social exclusion, especially for those who are defined in documents and studies as “children with a migrant background”, “disadvantaged”, or “in educational poverty”; it also supports the growth of each individual in complex societies (European Commission, 2019). The increasingly multicultural condition of social contexts worldwide, indeed, questions us on the ability to promote forms of citizenship capable of understanding and experiencing diversity as a value and richness. In this regard, it seems necessary to recall the fundamental importance of an integrated education and training system for children aged zero to six, and at the same time the centrality of adopting an intercultural approach in schools, starting from early childhood education and care. The intercultural perspective, infact, is aimed at promoting spaces for encounters between people from a plurality of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and at building greater inclusiveness in order to ensure real opportunities for development for all and to reduce forms of disadvantage (Fiorucci, 2020).
How, then, should these pedagogical perspectives be translated into educational practices? Which subjects should be involved? Which educational-didactic, theoretical, and epistemological and research dimensions should be adopted to support the intercultural perspective? These are the main questions of interest to this panel. We will therefore welcome presentations from both empirical and theoretical perspectives about:
– Theoretical and epistemological dimensions of interculture in relation to childhood;
– Experiences and good practices;
– Initial and in-service training from an intercultural perspective;
– Intercultural competences for 0-6 age range;
– Family-educational services alliance;
– Intercultural strategies;
– The 0-6 age range: racism, dialogue, identity, culture;
– Intercultural educational routines;
– Childhood, interculture and social justice;