Intercultura e narrazione. Una strategia chiave per la riduzione del pregiudizio

According to the most recent MIUR data, youths of foreign origin represent the 9% of all the school population. They have a family or direct migration background. This deep transformation of the Italian school system, which has become multiethnic and multicultural in a short period of time, urgently requires the adoption of inclusive policies and practices in an intercultural perspective. In line with this point of view, the experimental research clearly suggests that cultural integration is a key condition for achieving an effective and quality school (Scheerens, 2018). This paper focuses on a crucial factor for realizing a successful intercultural education: the reduction of prejudice towards foreign students. This factor is largely ignored in the MIUR document Linee guida per l’accoglienza e l’integrazione degli alunni stranieri (Miur, 2014). It is undoubtedly true that new arrivals are progressively reduced and that the larger part of foreign students are migrants’ sons born in Italy. However, this situation absolutely does not exclude that, as a consequence of their familiar background and cultural diversity, these students can be perceived as outgroup members and, as such, even stigmatized. The paper proposes a general strategy for reducing prejudice, based on intergroup contact through fictional narratives. The effectiveness of this strategy is supported by relevant evidence, in particular collected by cognitive psychology and social psychology. Moreover, according to the Indicazioni Nazionali, the relevance of narratives and also of fictional narrative is ubiquitous in the school curriculum. So, the proposed strategy can be easily implemented as an ordinary teaching strategy on the basis of small changes. Also, these changes are derived from the reported evidence. The paper starts with the definition of the narrative self (Conway, 2005; McAdams, 2013) and stresses the evidence about the impact of fictional narratives on the self, particularly on mind reading, attitudes, and prosocial behavior (Djikic et alii, 2009; Johnson, 2012; Bal, Veltkamp, 2013). Then the article defines the construct of prejudice (Dovidio et alii, 2010) and analyzes the main strategies for reducing it, with a special focus on the strategies centered on the intergroup contact (Brown, Hewstone, 2005; Moyer-Gusé, Dale, Ortiz, 2018). Finally, the article discusses the evidence recently collected concerning the strategy centered on the contact through fictional narratives (Vezzali et alii, 2015) and derives from it relevant indications for improving learning strategies devoted to reduce prejudice.

Secondo i dati MIUR più recenti, nella scuola italiana vi sono circa il 9% di studenti di origine straniera che hanno un background di migrazione, familiare o diretta. Tale contesto multietnico richiede politiche e pratiche inclusive e interculturali e, soprattutto, interventi educativi che mirino a ridurre pregiudizi e stereotipi. L’intervento si focalizza sulle strategie di riduzione del pregiudizio sperimentate dalla ricerca psicosociale che prevedono un uso delle narrazioni finzionali. A partire dalla definizione dell’io come sé narrativo si delineano le diverse direzioni nelle quali la narrazione, nello specifico di natura finzionale, può modificare l’io, con attenzione agli effetti sul mind reading, sugli atteggiamenti e sul comportamento prosociale. In secondo luogo, si presenta la strategia di riduzione del pregiudizio basata sull’ipotesi del contatto e, in particolare, sul contatto esteso. Infine, si analizza la specifica applicazione della strategia del contatto esteso attraverso il ricorso alle narrazioni finzionali. Tale strategia appare per sua natura particolarmente funzionale al contesto scolastico e facilmente applicabile nella didattica ordinaria.