Art and beyond: Multidisciplinary and intercultural educational programmes for school inclusion
Antonella Coppi
Over the past five years the immigration flows recorded in EU countries have significantly increased the presence of children coming from «other» cultures. These children have brought different educational needs, together with a human and cultural heritage that is increasingly characterising our country as a multicultural one. European policies in the field of immigrants´ integration, aimed at ensuring equality and preventing any racial or ethnic discrimination, have been implemented through the recently launched Integration Action Plan: art and its languages are offered as powerful mediators of communication that play an important role in supporting children and young people coming from migrant contexts. In this way, they help schools to achieve good results by facilitating peer mentoring and the development of specific policies and measures to support newly arrived immigrant pupils, creating opportunities for meeting parents and institutions. These actions are mainly aimed at promoting equity, inclusive education, teaching, cooperative relations and intercultural dialogue, through the development of new artistic languages, inside and outside institutions.
Keywords
Art, education, expression, integration, dialogue, inclusion
