Foreign students have been for a decade now at the centre of the debate on the future of immigration in Italy as well as intercultural discourse: from school to the world of free-time associationism, today they are the most interesting subject to observe and present. The observation part places the school world in centre stage because it is the best observation and meeting point.

The foreign minor has become at the same time emblematic of the inevitable multicultural society and the difficulties which it entails: what are the changes in teacher’s perceptions over the time? How are these pupils considered in Italian schools? Has their image changed as their numbers have increased? In the paper, I’ll examine how teachers have handled and recount the changes in their classrooms as a result of the insertion of foreign minors. It is an important point due to the fact that foreign minors make up a meaningful part of the youth population for at least three reasons. First of all, there is the numerical relevance and the weight this will have in various contexts of Italian society from school to the job market. Secondly, because it is a component where there is a high risk of projecting the anxiety of assimilation as well as of applying models of interpreting biographical trajectories which are predetermined and harbingers of stereotypes and prejudices.  Finally, the relevance of this theme derives from the fact that, as in every migratory process, the passage from the first to the second generation is the acid test of the reciprocal adaptation path between immigrants and the receiving society. 

Barbagli M., Schmoll C., (eds.), (2011), Stranieri in Italia. La generazione dopo, Il Mulino, Bologna. Barban N., White M.J. (2011). Immigrants’ children’s transition to secondary school in Italy. International Migration Review, 45: 702-726. Billari F., Dalla Zuanna G. (2008), La rivoluzione nella culla. Il declino che non c’è, Il Mulino, Bologna. Cuddy, A. J. C., Norton, M., & Fiske, S. T. (2005). This old stereotype: The pervasiveness and persistence of the elderly stereotype. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 267–285.