Religious pluralism and educational action. A research on Christmas festivities in Milan’s infant schools
Anna Granata
Religious pluralism is a common feature of the so-called multicultural school, a challenge of crucial importance but scarcely investigated by the Italian pedagogical literature. The hypothesis of this research was that religious pluralism challenges the family-school relationship with dynamics distinct from the most well-known intercultural issues. The research was carried out in a group of infant schools in Milan, from 2014 to 2016. Deep interviews and stories of practice collected within a group of teachers were adopted to investigate the family-school relations in a multicultural context. Results suggest that imaginations and behaviors emerging before Christmas festivities recall three action models: an indifferent model, a separatist model and an intercultural model. The last one approach seems to be the most adapt to build a good collaboration family-school, sharing common meanings and values.
Keywords
Intercultural education, intercultural pedagogy, religious pluralism, family-school relation, infant school.