APCOM

It has been recorded that in Milano, between the school years of 2000/2001 and 2007/2008, there has been an increase in preschoolers with parents who have a foreign citizenship. Numbers have increased from 1,781 to 4,400, with a total increase of about 150%. In these preschools, 20% of the pupils - one out of five - don't have Italian citizenship. In the whole Regione Lombardia, the figures have risen to 7,320 (6.1%). Besides, in the last eight years, the children's national origin has greatly changed. For example, eight years ago Ecuadorian children who entered infants' schools were only 24, while in 2007 they became 431, the third largest group after the Filipinos and Egyptians. These changes have brought about many issues concerning organization and, above all, cultural mediation. This significant data and the resulting needs have been collected in a research which aims to give voice to all the protagonists of infants' schools.

The investigation, which is still under way, has been carried out in five countries - Italy, United States, Germany, France and Great Britain - each one represented by a major city (Milano, Phoenix, Berlin, Paris and Birmingham), and it's been introduced as one of the events dedicated to the tenth anniversary of Milano's Università Bicocca. Susanna Mantovani, Pro-Chancellor of the athenaeum, has underlined the importance of these kind of enquiries: "The early results emphasize that in spite of their willingness to welcome all the children, teachers today don't have those anthropologic skills and those didactic instruments, particularly in the linguistic field, that are necessary to turn the intercultural experience into an opportunity of learning for all the pupils, both native and of foreign origin".