Language and social integration in multicultural contexts

This chapter aims to discuss an important topic for the development of European societies: the development and integration of children with an immigration background and native children in educational multicultural context. Cultural diversity is, in fact, a current normative feature of European society and being in relationship to people coming from other countries, showing different ethnicities and speaking the country’s language as a second language is a more and more common experience for any European citizen. However, this changes do not come without difficulties and imply a challenge to face. How this challenge will be addressed, which resources will be used and developed, will determine how harmonious the civil cohabitation will be, and the level of personal and social wellbeing of native and immigrant citizens. Therefore in the following sections we discuss the situation of immigrant children in educational institutions in Europe and Italy, we review the relevant literature on specific factors influencing social integration and we describe a European project which aimed at fostering social integration in primary school immigrant children through language learning activities.