Schools in Rome
Life – and language – class

By Emiliano Pretto
february 2009

Italy has been transformed in recent decades from a nation of emigrants to a target country for mass immigration. While Britain, France, Germany and Spain have sought to face the problems posed by integration of large immigrant communities for many years, in Italy the process is still in its early stages.

The number of children from immigrant families at elementary schools in Rome has been increasing constantly over the last ten years. How do the schools meet the challenges posed by these changes? And how best can educational integration be achieved?
Roberto Sandrucci taught in a Rome elementary school for ten years. He now teaches older pupils at a scientific high school.
“ Clearly there are problems to be overcome. The greatest initial obstacle is language. Many of the children may not speak Italian, which creates difficulties for learning and also for their social integration with their classmates. At high school level things are much better. By that stage the children from immigrant families have acquired fluent Italian and are thoroughly integrated.”

So the key problem is language. Unlike Britain, France and Spain, Italy does not have a colonial history. The Italian language has not spread far and wide outside the national frontiers. Many immigrants arriving in Britain or France will come from countries where English or French were already spoken. Most immigrants arriving in Italy do not know a word of Italian.
Once immigrant children have overcome their initial problems with the language, they frequently prove to be excellent students.
“ Foreign pupils are usually far more concerned about getting good marks than Italian children, and their parents have a much more respectful attitude towards schools and education,” explains an administrator at the Di Donato School in Esquilino, where around 50% of the pupils are from immigrant families.
Is racism a problem at schools in Rome? Roberto Sandrucci has not had to face incidents of intolerance.
“ I’ve never personally had to deal with outbreaks of racism. But I know of colleagues working in schools in outlying districts who have. The worst problems happen when there’s a lot of publicity about adults from immigrant communities involved in crime. People take it out on the children. School is just a mirror of society as a whole: if there’s an outbreak of racial hostility towards a specific community – as recently happened with Romanians – then it also affects life in school.”

Just over a year ago Rome’s centre-left mayor Walter Veltroni tried a novel – and tasty – approach to breaking down cultural barriers between Italian and foreign pupils by introducing ethnic food onto the menus in elementary school canteens. Once a month children had the chance to sample specialities from Albania, Bangladesh, China, North Africa, Eastern Europe or the Phillippines instead of their usual plate of pasta. The city’s new centre-right mayor Gianni Alemanno has abandoned the experiment, infuriating its supporters who saw shared meals as a small but significant step towards far greater goals.