''Fare gli italiani'': citizenship education and the difficult pathway from migrants to citizens

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Introduction 
The question that this thesis is intended to address is how, and 
through which strategies, it is possible to promote migrants’ integration 
into European countries and especially in Italy. It is clear that this is a 
sharply broad field of inquiry and a large variety of answers are, therefore, 
possible. To narrow the analysis, this work is focused mainly on the 
relation between integration and education. In other words, it focuses on 
the role of educational institutions in fostering integration into the host 
societies. It is indeed important to note that, at a European level, 
education is considered a key element in promoting integration, as three 
main documents highlight. These are the Directive 77/486/CEE adopted 
by the European Council in 1977, the Green Paper adopted by the 
European Commission in July 2008, and the Education and Training 2020 
(ET 2020) strategic framework. 
Hence, a specific field of education is particularly noteworthy, 
namely, the education to citizenship and the promotion of citizenship 
identity. It is not a coincidence that the ET 2020 stresses the importance of 
including it within the school programs of all the State Members. In 
particular, citizenship education should make an effort to foster a new 
citizenship identity among the migrant students, namely, a feeling of 
belonging and attachment to a state’ social and political community 
(Joppke 2010). 
Citizenship identity is regarded as a factor strengthening loyalty 
towards a State, thereby increasing participation in the public sphere and 
constructive engagement to improve social and political life. Therefore, at 
the end of the thesis, it will be stressed that there is not only one 
theoretical framework for teaching citizenship identity. By contrast, two 
main strategies will be highlighted, first considering a wider European level 
and thereafter focusing on a national - and even local - context.
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The choice to deal with this topic is due to a number of issues. To 
begin with, the positive effects resulting from the integration of migrants 
into the European countries. On the one hand, integration becomes vital to 
assure the full development of migrants as human beings and citizens of a 
state. Such development had indeed been previously denied to them in 
their countries of origin and that is the reason why they decided to leave or 
(as in the case of asylum-seekers) have been forced to leave. 
Moreover, developing the migrants as human beings and truly 
citizens does not bring advantages to them only. Conversely, if migrants 
can efficiently integrate into a state’s economic, social and political 
spheres, the host societies will be benefited as well, contrary to common 
perceptions and political propaganda statements. On the contrary, failure 
to integrate and marginalization can bring fundamentalism and violence, 
as recent events have shown. 
Finally, it should not be forgotten that school is a place where kids 
and young people, both natives and migrants, spend the majority of their 
time. It goes, therefore, without saying that the educational institutions play 
a critical role in the formation of students’ identity, although that is shaped 
by external factors as well. Thus, it is interesting and useful to investigate 
which strategies have been put in place to respond to the migration 
phenomenon.  
A variety of researches have been made which address this issue 
from diverse perspectives, especially sociological (how relationship 
between migrants and natives are built in school) and psychological (how 
young migrants feel within their classes and the consequences upon their 
future life path).Furthermore, the specific issues of citizenship and identity 
have been dealt in depth by Senior Lecturer Avril Keating, in particular 
focusing on the relations among young people, societies, and citizenship. 
Accordingly, this work takes Keating’s notion of citizenship identity and is 
intended to explore its potential especially in connection with the young 
migrant population.
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Now, let’s outline this essay structure. In Chapter One, the definition, 
importance and positive impacts of migrants’ integration in Europe will be 
discussed. Chapter One will also attempt to make a distinction between 
the common perceptions about migrants – as fostered by media and 
politicians- and the migration real effects. In the last section, the role of the 
educational institutions in supporting and influencing the integration path 
will be explained, especially in the light of the European Union’s 
framework. 
Chapter Two will provide a definition of citizenship and its main 
dimensions, especially the juridical and the moral dimensions. The link 
between citizenship education and migrants’ integration will be outlined 
too. Thereafter, based on the ICCS analysis and its findings, the main 
strategies to implement citizenship education will be illustrated. An 
interesting point emerging will be that whilst there are available three main 
approaches to citizenship juridical education, there is not a single 
theoretical framework for teaching citizenship identity. Therefore, the 
French and British citizenship education strategies will be taken as 
reference models: these are education about citizenship and education 
through citizenship, respectively. 
Chapter Three will be centered on the Italian case. Namely, why 
integration matters in the country’ scenario; the Italian integration «no 
model»  (Guolo 2009, p.4); and the promotion of citizenship identity. 
Finally, Chapter Four will be particularly linked to Chapter Three. 
Indeed, it will describe two local and regional education experiences of 
«Cittadinanza e Costituzione» in two Italian towns, Vicenza and Padua. 
The focus will be on primary (Padua) and middle schools (Vicenza). 
Starting from these experiences, a reflection will be made about which 
common elements (shared rights, values or others) can be possibly used 
in the long period to create citizenship identity and sense of identity – such 
element to belong to natives and migrant students alike.
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CHAPTER I 
1. Who are migrants? 
The definition of migrants is more complicated that it seems, as the 
Executive Director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience 
Fund Koser suggests. The United Nations (UN)’ official definition tells us 
that a migrant is «someone living outside his own country for an year or 
more» (Koser 2007, p.16). Nevertheless, since this is a very broad and 
general explanation, scholars have progressively formulated further sub-
categories, in order to capture the complexity of migrants’ reality (Koser, 
2007). 
Therefore, three main categorizations exist. The first distinguishes 
migrants between forced and voluntary migrants. The earlier are people 
who have been forced to leave their origin country for another, due to a 
variety of reasons (the main ones will be described later on). The latter 
instead have voluntary decided to leave, often because they want to 
improve their working and economic status (Koser, 2007). 
A second common distinction is between low skilled and highly-
skilled migrants. In other words, those having an high level of education 
and job qualifications and those who do not. Within highly-skilled migrants, 
we also find students, especially young people from developing countries 
moving to developed States’ Universities (Koser, 2007). 
The final distinction entails regular and irregular migrants. While 
regular migrants are allowed to remain in host countries, irregular ones 
have entered either without the required documents or with all documents 
but then have forgotten to renew them once expired. As a matter of fact, 
the different categories are not static, yet they often overlap (Koser, 2007). 
For the purposes of this work, it will be used the UN’s general 
definition, encompassing all the categories just outlined. According to the 
context dealt, it will be explicated whether a specific migrants’ category is
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considered and, eventually, which one. As anticipated, there are very often 
some overlap between the different categories. 
2. Integration: an Elusive Concept. 
Similarly to the definition of migrants, integration is an ill-defined 
concept too. It literally refers to the act of joining a part into an entity. 
However, this notion can be understood and perceived differently at 
country-level, thus leading to quite different outcomes. As a universally-
recognized perspective has not been formulated yet, a number of 
definitions by several key actors dealing with migration and integration, will 
be considered. 
To begin with, let’s consider the definition provided by the 
International Organization for Migration (IOM). Namely, integration is «the 
process of mutual adaptation between host societies and newcomers. It 
implies a sense of obligation and respect for a core set of values that bind 
migrants and their host communities to a common purpose. Integration 
provides not merely economic and cultural benefits, yet society security 
and stability as well» (IOM, 2016). Furthermore, integration is seen as a 
«two-way process» (Ibid) as it brings benefits to both sides. 
Moreover, another key actor dealing with a specific category of 
migrants, i.e., asylum seekers and refugees, is the Office of the United 
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Agency provides 
a similar explanation about integration. «Integration is a complex, gradual 
and mutually demanding process, involving economic, social, cultural and 
legal dimensions. It culminates when migrants or asylum-seekers finally 
acquire another country’s nationality» (UNHCR, 2016). 
The dimensions of integration are further analyzed by Regout (2010). 
In the scholar’s view, three main integration dimensions can be outlined, to 
say, socio-economic, cultural and political integration. A socio-economical 
integration involves access to housing, welfare, education, employment
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and services. It is this sphere of integration that allows migrants to function 
in society on a day-to-day basis (Regout, 2010). 
Cultural integration usually implies knowledge of the language and of 
the values of the host country (Regout, 2010). Still, it is not easily 
definable nor measurable, and it is subject to interpretation and debate. 
This subject is linked to the issue of identity and citizenship identity that is 
a central point to this thesis, and will be investigated in depth. 
Finally, the political and legal integration is the most controversial 
aspect of integration, because it usually involves granting political rights, 
such as, the right to vote and to be elected as well as other rights usually 
granted to nationals (Regout, 2010). In most countries, the political 
integration requires citizenship or naturalization, which entails a kind of 
exclusivity and is often a key to access basic rights in a community (Ibid). 
Accordingly, political integration is often considered as the final stage 
of integration. Anyway, even though in countries where citizenship is 
based on ius soli and, therefore, second-generation immigrants born on 
the territory receive political rights at birth, instances of their failed 
integration do prove that extending the political rights alone is not the key 
to integration (Regout, 2010). Also these issues will be addressed later on. 
Furthermore, at national level, a research carried out by the Italian 
Studies on Multiethnicity Foundation (ISMU) in Milan, is particularly 
noteworthy. According to the ISMU Foundation, integration is defined 
through a specific tool called integration meter which analyzes the 
immigrants’ integration in Italy and Europe, through a number of variables. 
Namely, owning a legal permit, being a permanent resident, being 
placed and having an active role in the national labor markets, having a 
steady job, a house and a good knowledge of the national language, being 
informed about the key historical events and recent events, respecting the 
country’s rules and lifestyles, being able to build and maintain economic
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relationships, thereafter also friendly and cooperative relationships with 
local population and other migrants’ communities. Each variable can range 
from 0 (failed integration) to 1 (successful integration). Then the average is 
calculated according to the results again using a 0 to 1 scale, where 1 
means full integration (Ismu Foundation, 2014). 
In spite of the differences among the definitions provided, three key 
common elements emerge. First, integration is characterized by different 
stages or dimensions, intertwined with each other. Specifically, integration 
initially encompasses the inclusion into a country’s labor market, which 
generally is a simpler process, as it involves purely economic interests. It 
is true that migrants are often blamed for stealing jobs away from natives, 
however it will be shown later than economic relationships often bring 
advantages to both natives and migrants. 
Thereafter, it comes to integration into national societies and political 
life. These are far more complex because touching more sensitive issues, 
such as a country’ s traditions, founding values and identity. One of the 
main accusations against migrants is indeed that of altering and 
destroying the national identity and progressively taking the place of 
natives. 
Moreover, integration has a reciprocal character: all stakeholders 
involved have to go through a mutual adaptation process. On the one 
hand, migrants have indeed to accept, respect and adapt to their host 
societies’ rules and lifestyles. On the other hand, host societies should be 
open to diverse cultural traditions and lifestyles. This implies neither 
rejecting them in toto nor carrying on do-goodism and hiding or forgetting 
their own traditional symbols. On the contrary, an ideal (even if not always 
easy to put in practice) option would be trying to know the newcomers’ 
background better and to understand those elements which can fit into the 
host society, possibly improving or complementing that.