The Future of Education
Students with a Migrant Background and Special Educational Needs: Discrimination and Specificities
Rosella Bianco, University of Granada (Spain)
Mónica Ortiz-Cobo, University of Granada (Spain)
Abstract
In the current work we discuss the Italian guidelines about Special Educational Needs (ministerial directive of the 27 December 2012) taking into consideration its repercussions and implementations on the group of students with migrant origins. For the first time, through this directive, Italian education considers the linguistic and socio-cultural diversity as an educational disadvantage, to an equal extent to disadvantages such as disabilities and developmental disorders [1] [2]. After a short introduction on the Special Educational Needs typologies considered by the Italian guidelines over the time, we will analyze the category of students with migrant origins. In details, we will highlight three main issues:
- The relation between linguistic diversity, integration and discrimination;
- The learning specificities of students with migrant origins;
- The relation between being a migrant and a disabled person.
Students with migrant origins are a particular typology of students that can potentially have various peculiarities and difficulties due to their life path. Learning repercussions are hence not limited to their linguistic and cultural knowledge, but could affect different learning aspects. Nevertheless, when talking about this group of students, the attention habitually falls on their linguistic skills in the language of instruction. At this regard, we emphasize that considering their linguistic diversity as a disadvantage could be discriminative, especially considering that linguistic diversity should be instead thought as an enriching factor [3] [4].
Keywords: Special Educational Needs; Immigrants; Discrimination; Linguistic Diversity.
References:
[1] MIUR (2012). Direttiva del 27-12-2012: “Strumenti d’intervento per alunni con bisogni educativi speciali e organizzazione territoriale per l’inclusione scolastica”.
[2] OMS (2007). ICF-CY, Trento: Erickson.
[3] De Deus Pinheiro, J. (2008). El perfil del multilingüismo en la Unión Europea (UE) y la promoción del plurilingüismo. Revista de humanidades, 23(1), 47-56.
[4] Unión Europea (2000). Carta de los derechos fundamentales de la Unión Europea.
