The recognition that our societies are characterized by a plurality of cultures, languages and faiths have increased the concern of supra-national European institutions for the enactment of educational and social justice towards a country’s citizens and its internal minorities, as well as immigrants. Roma and Sinti groups have received the most attention owing to the persistence of policies and practices that discriminate or exclude adults from work opportunities, and their children from the right to education. Recently, European attention (ECOTEC 2008) has also been focused on the right to education, and therefore to future civic participation, of children and youth of the so called “occupational nomads”, namely those families whose work and life subsistence are guaranteed by “nomadic” occupations. The fairground and circus people are part of the “occupational nomads” and their children’s right to education has certainly raised considerable concern, as their learning is regularly “interrupted” by the family’s repeated moves to yet another location  where a fair or a festival are held. The learning experience of a number of children of Italian travelling attractionists (as they are defined by a 1968 law recognizing their contribution to culture and economy of the country) that I presented in previous ECERs questions teachers’ readiness to encounter cultural diversity (Gobbo 2003a, 2003b,2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2008, 2009) and problematize it as a potential resource. My paper continues the exploration of reflective and imaginative approaches to cultural diversity as an educational resource, by examining how this particular kind of occupational nomadism interrogates social changes and educational responses.

1. F. Gobbo (2003a) L'intercultura tra antropologia e filosofia, in Gobbo F. (a cura di), Multiculturalismo e intercultura. Interpretazione dei contesti, progettualità pedagogica, Imprimitur editrice, Padova, pp. 123- 152. 2. F. Gobbo (2003b) C'è una giostra nel futuro? Esperienza scolastica e processo di inculturazione in una minoranza occupazionale nomade, in Gobbo F. (a cura di), Etnografia dell'educazione in Europa. Soggetti, contesti, questioni metodologiche, Edizioni Unicopli, Milano, pp. 209- 245. 3. F. Gobbo (2006) Along the Margins, Across the Borders: Teaching and Learning among Veneto attrazionisti viaggianti, in TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION, vol. 22, pp. 788- 803. 4. F. Gobbo (2007a) Alunni "di passo" ? Le narrazioni degli insegnanti sulla scolarizzazione dei figli degli attrazionisti viaggianti, in Gobbo F. (a cura di), Processi educativi nelle società multiculturali, CISU, Roma, pp. 139- 159. 5. F. Gobbo (2007b) Between the road and the town: the education of travelling attractionists. An ethnographic research, in W. T. Pink, G. W. Noblit eds., International Handbook on Urban Education, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 481- 503. 6. F. Gobbo (2008) Learning from others, learning with others: the tense encounter between equality and difference, ORBIS SCHOLAE, Vol. 2, pp. 55- 75. 7. F. Gobbo (2009) Moving lives: a Reflective Account of a Three Generation Travelling Attractionist Family , in Danaher P., Kenny M., Leder J., Traveller, Nomadic and Migrant Education, Routledge, London, pp. 13- 28.