This study involves 35 research participants: 20 immigrant parents (primarily mothers from South America, North Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East) and 15 primary school children, aged 10–1...

Voices of children and parents from elsewhere: a glance at integration in Italian primary schools

Communication of the death of a patient in hospices and nursing homes: A qualitative study

1. IntroductionIn Italy, in the last 20 years, the presence of students who have migrated directly (immigrant children) or indirectly (children with immigrant backgrounds) is constantly increasing. During the school year 2011/2012, there were 755.939 pupils with non-Italian citizenship attending school, accounting for almost 8.4% of the overall school population (in 1997 they only accounted for 0.7%). Their presence is greatest in primary school, where they are 9.5% of those who attend. Among the many nationalities represented, Romanian, Albanian, and Moroccan are the largest groups (Ismu-Miur, 2013).For migrant children and their families, school is a whole new world, and represents the ability of the host society to accept or reject them. School is the gateway to the host society, and the key to a new future. Actually, institutional education can be a two-edged sword. Special programs (e.g. language instruction and intercultural programs) can facilitate learning and foster the integration process by building bridges between communities and individuals from diverse backgrounds (European Commission, 2008). On the other hand, education reproduces inequalities if discriminatory practices, such as exclusion and segregation (Chomentowski, 2009) lead to lower educational attainments of disadvantaged minority groups (EUMC, 2004, p. 3). The relationship with school is complex, weaving personal goals, family expectations, and social pressures. Upon school entrance, one's self perception and the place one can occupy in this new world becomes clearer.Although there are some studies (Canino, 2010; Colombo, 2010; Dusi, 2011; Luciano, Demartini & Ricucci, 2009; Ongini, 2011) examining the relationship between immigrant families, their children and schools, the data regarding the process of integration of immigrant children in Italian schools require further investigation (EUMC, 2004). Since the widespread tendency is to attribute the responsibility of school and socio-educational integration difficulties to the families of immigrant students (Perregaux et al., 2006; Lenoir et al., 2008), and to their different culture, we thought it would be useful to hear the voices of children from elsewhere (MacNaughton, Smith & Davis, 2007). Considering their points of view could be helpful in order to develop some useful reflections (Rorty, 1991) on their experiences and needs, and to design educational interventions to support their integration, based on their point of view as "sophisticated thinkers and communicators" (Harcourt & Conroy, 2005, p. 567) and fully recognized social actors.2. Problem StatementThe need of belongingness is an human basic psychological need. In contemporary, multicultural Western societies this need is difficult to satisfy, especially for those who undergo a sense of loss from the very beginning of their lives, such as children who experience migration (Moro, 2010).In literature, it has been defined in a number of ways (Vallerand, 1997; Baumeinster & Leary, 1995; Goodenow, 1993; Maslow, 1954). In Educational environments, the need of belonging is one of the most important needs of all students to function well (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 1991; Finn, 1898; Osterman, 2010). According to Goodenow and Grady (1993), the sense of belonging defines the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included and supported in the class and in the school social environment. "Students' sense of being accepted, valued, included, and encouraged by others (teachers and peers) in the academic classroom setting and of feeling oneself to be an important part of the life and activity of the class. More than simple perceived liking or warmth, it also involves support and respect for personal autonomy and for the student as an individual" (Goodenow, 1993, p. 25). The quality of education, stated Dewey, "is realized in the degree in which individuals form a group" (1958, p. …

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Integration In Italian Primary Schools: Immigrant Children’s Voices

Current approaches to semantics in the geospatial domain are mainly based on ontologies, but ontologies, since continue to build entirely on the symbolic methodology, suffers from the classical problems, e.g. the symbol grounding problem, affecting representational theories. We claim for an enactive approach to semantics, where meaning is considered to be an emergent feature arising context-dependently in action. Since representational theories are unable to deal with context and emergence, a new formalism is required toward a contextual theory of concepts. SCOP is considered a promising formalism in this sense and is briefly described.

Geospatial semantics: a critical review

The present work is divided into two parts. The first (only in Italian) is an analysis of some texts
about time in Nicolai Hartmann's works, and especially in Moglichkeit und Wirklichkeit (1938) and
Philosophie der Natur (1950). The second part is a theoretical discussion of one of the main
problems concerning time in the contemporary philosophy (and in the philosophy of physics in
particular), i.e., the problem of the unreality of time. Some recent theses will be compared and
analyzed in the light of Hartmann's critical ontology.
The scope of Part II is to evaluate whether and how Hartmannian arguments and theses may have
a role in the present debate. In order to introduce those positions, Part I is not thought to be an
exhaustive dissertation about time in Hartmann's philosophy, but only an attempt to interpret some
aspects of his view about this issue in the wider contest of his analysis of the Realsein.
Thus, ch. 1 treats the basic notion of "category" in Hartmann's critical ontology and in particular
in the third volume of his tetralogy, Der Aufbau der realen Welt (1940). There is also a brief account
of his position about realism. Ch. 2 faces the relation between time and reality, which is defined in a
double manner, namely, as the sphere of the individual being and as the kingdom of becoming. The
latter definition depends on Hartmann's modal analysis (in Moglichkeit und Wirklichkeit) and
derives from the connection of modality with temporality. Ch. 3 consists in an exposition of the
main theses about the Realzeit (real time), exposed in Philosophie der Natur. In ch. 4 I try to make a
brief survey of some important problems in the contemporary philosophy of time. In ch. 5 I discuss
the problem of the "disappearance of spacetime", emerged in the current debate around the
theoretical results of the quantum gravity research program. I present, moreover, the objections that
Hartmann would have raised against that thesis. In ch. 6, finally, I try to do the same with the socalled
"problem of frozen time" in quantum gravity and general relativity.

http://inspirehep.net/record/1409210/files/PhD_Thesis_Pinna.pdf

Pietro Chiodi

Papers

Essere e tempo