Education Right 1 EDUCATION RIGHT: A SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION GROUNDED THEORY IN ITALIAN COMPULSORY SCHOOLS. Luca Ghirotto Ph.D. Candidate Department of Cognitive Science and Education University of Trento Education Right 2 CHAPTER 1 – FOREWORD The Guarantee of The Education Right Some years ago, I worked as substituting teacher within several Italian middle schools. There was in one of my classrooms, a pupil coming from the East-Europe. He was smart and bright. He has been arrived in Italy lately. He was used to raise the hands and make me pay attention to him anytime I would say words, whose meaning he did not know. He was used, also, to interrupt me many times during the flow of the speech. “But, teacher! What does this word mean?” After once I said out loud: “Stop, now! Stop interrupting me asking the meanings!” I have been thinking about what happened for long. I had the impression that something was not so right. I promised to my self to talk about it with the pupil. After several days, I was again in the same classroom. I pronounced a very difficult word, knowing that he would never heard it before. He did not raise the hand. Therefore, I asked him: “Do you know what it means?” He answered: “No, I don’t”. I replied: “I know that I told you to not interrupt me. However, you know what I tell you this time? Raise your hand and always ask the meaning of unfamiliar words. If not the risk is that you will never learn them. Moreover, do it with me, even if Education Right 3 I am tired, or I look at you badly. Do not care about. Asking things you do not know or understand is your right.” I noticed that other children, among the Italians, did not know the meaning of certain words, but only the foreign student continued to ask their meaning. The foreign student in class has become a phenomenon that is increasingly back. 574,133 foreign students are enrolled in the school year 2007/2008. Represent 6.4% of the total, but in some provinces in central and northern Italy reaches record concentrations up to 14%. 191 nationalities are represented 1. The concentration is mostly in the regions of centre and north of Italy, some regions are evidently preferred: in Emilia Romagna, students with no Italian citizenship are 11.8% of the whole studentship, in Umbria are 11.4 %, in Lombardy and Veneto are more than 10%. There are classrooms with more than half of foreign students, as well as “illegal” students, i.e. children of illegal immigrants who have full right and duty to participate in the Italian school system, as was established by Italian law. Behind my nuisance, a feeling caused by continuous interrupting as well as what is going on underneath the modalities of acceptance and management of foreigners in the classroom lurks the danger that the education right of foreigners in Italy would be only a facade and not the substantial implementation of the law. The Italian Ministry of Education bureau, in fact, recognized as an alarming issue, the lack of regular school attendance among students with non-Italian citizenship. This is due both to difficulties related to the lack of knowledge of the Italian language and to problems of social integration. On average, 42.5% of foreign pupils are not 1 CENSIS 2008. Education Right 4 in good standing with their studies as the age increases their discomfort in attending school. The social education right is fully guaranteed whenever a student, regardless of nationality, language, culture, arrives, accomplishing the obligation school to the end of curricula. The students must have chosen their education without any external influence, such as economic needs, for example, or discrimination of any kind. The Italian Ministry of Education argues that the phenomenon of foreign pupils abandoning school is due to difficulties linked to the lack of knowledge of Italian as second language and problems of social integration. A question would arise: who teaches Italian to immigrants? The school, that is the place of the materialisation of the constitutional education right, is, at the same time, the institution, which teaches Italian and, because of lack of knowledge of Italian, encourages foreign students to choose the road of abandonment. The same could be said about the other cause denounced, the social inclusion. The current situation (while this chapter is written) is cause for great concern about the schools’ destiny in Italy, and about what the school, on the light of political and economic reforms to be implemented, would be no longer able to do for the weakest sectors of society. It is news of October 15 th 2008: The Chamber approved a law-proposal about Italian school system. La Lega especially, a right-wing party extremely critic about the presence of immigrants in the country, commits the government to “revise the system for access of foreign students to the school of any level, encouraging their application, after passing the test and assessment of specific evidence.” In practice, immigrants who do not pass the test for admission must Education Right 5 attend separate classes, called ‘bridging classes’, in order to learn Italian, before the real admission into the regular classes.” (Source: www.repubblica.it ). In the Chapter 2, I shall introduce the theme of social rights on the light of theoretical suggestions given by Social Justice Education (SJE). Social rights are the quality’s index of the policy of a country; they feed of the idea of justice and do not derive from the economical competitiveness. What is happening today in Italy with undermines with power never seen before any possibility to ensure to everyone, but especially to those who start from at the most disadvantaged conditions, the education right. Already last summer teachers were complaining about the cuts of staff, the inability of schools to have linguistic and cultural mediators who could teach Italian to the immigrant students in order to the better social integration possible. In Milan, for example, supporting teachers were not hired. In the city and province of Milan, there are only 94 language facilitators for 46 thousand students. Only 5 years ago, the facilitators were 200. The erosion of the public sphere is giving the school a face less and less comfortable and less emancipatorie for those who would need “something more” to keep up with others. Nevertheless, the majority proposed bridging classes. They could not say “separate classes” or “differential” because the Law No. 270 of 1982 and Law No. 517 of 1977, have abolished the differential classes provided by Articles 11 and 12 of Law No. 1859 of December 31 st 1962, with the choice to invest curricular teachers of the responsibility of all pupils, even if arrived during the year. They want to go back more than 40 years, fading the chance to see the education right fully guaranteed. The only solution is Education Right 6 using teachers for implementing educational projects aimed to carry foreign students to the other students’ level, with the help of public authorities, whose choices depend on the political climate. Moreover, not all political climates are to help foreigners. Another example: in Padua schools ethnically mixed classes are a reality, with peaks of 37-38% of foreign students in neighbourhoods ‘Arcella’ and ‘Forcellini’ - where there is a huge numbers of immigrant families. In particular, in middle school ‘Briosco’ the percentage of kids - Africans and Asians, especially - is among the highest ones. A percentage that in some sections ultimately raises the concerns and protests from Italian parents, sustained by the education regional authority, Elena Donazzan of An, in favour of “ethnic quotas” now advocated by the Lega in Parliament. (Source: La Repubblica of October 15 th ’08). In the Chapter 2, also I shall discuss the characteristics of SJE thanks to which all those involved in education may understand why the recent political reforms of the school, the Public administration and Social Services, will open a wound and a crisis that difficultly will be healed within a just democratic country. The SJE draws concepts and notions as social change, empowerment, acceptance of differences and guaranteeing the education right. From a theoretical point of view, I shall outline the contact between these concepts and the theory of justice, to propose a definition that gives broader space to education as a resource of a country to determine a fair development. It will be introduced the capabilities’ approach of Amartya Sen (1992, 1999) and Martha Nussbaum (1999; 2002, 2003a; 2003b), an approach Education Right 7 that gives reasons of the foundations of both the political and educational choices of a country. I will start from the concept of democracy and the relationship that exists between it and the education and social rights because it has always been one of my research interests and reflection. What is certain is that finding a place, a moment, event, or phenomenon useful to study that relationship was not so easy. I tried to make clear first to me what might mean democracy within the educational debate. Moreover, the SJE is the best suitable critical and theoretical frame for the theme. However, the theoretical chapter will change the SJE with some appropriate amends. While the “classical” SJE is within the critical theories in education (Dewey, 1916/2000, Freire, 2004, 2006; Gadotti, 1996; Macedo, 1995), my references include the political theory of Rawls (1971/2008, 1996, 2001), and the liberal outlook, including suggestions for the construction of the justice by Nussbaum. Education as A Research-Driven Science In chapter 3, I shall address issues concerning the methodology and the method of the empirical research whose results will be presented in the following chapter.