Immigration, Education and Identity in Italy

Friday, September 5, 2008

Manka Varghese, Director: Historically, Italy was one of the leading countries of emigrants – their citizens created homes in a number of other countries, especially the United States - now it is a major destination for immigrants from countries as varied as Romania, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Morocco. In this seminar, we will investigate immigration and identity at several levels through the lens of schooling, which is a central institution in the formation of identities and the lives of its citizens and residents. We will mainly explore how immigrant youth and their families are making sense of schooling and how this influences who they are. We will look at how immigrant youth and their families change the identity of the country while they navigate its diverse institutional contexts, especially the context of schooling. We will also look at how the institution of schooling is making programmatic and instructional decisions around their immigrant student population, thereby crafting identities for them.