Abstract
Relationships with multiple places that children construct and maintain through temporary long-term journeys can be analyzed to reflect and give relevance to two meaningful aspects in social sciences. On one side, for children included into the Italian educational system, these journeys constitute a break inside school system which sheds light on social changes through which school, as an institution, has to deal with. On the other side, children’s mobility opens important reflections upon the role of children in social processes, imposing to recognize them as deeply involved in global dynamics and not as passive recipients of cultural and social processes.
Based on interviews realized with teachers of students living temporal return trips to their or their parent’s countries of departure, this paper aims to present narratives concerning children’s transnational experiences from the perspective of teachers. These interviews present narratives in which concepts like culture, identity and belonging are observed as fragile constraints in children’s developmental process. The break that these transnational journeys represent inside the educational process reveals meanings connected to these concepts which are relevant to investigate the daily understanding of mobility inside school and its social effects at an educational structural level.
The purpose of this paper is therefore to present the meanings’ constructions that international mobility takes on in these narratives and reflecting upon how the educational system interprets and deals with unexpected elements which introduce complexity within its structure.
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Amadasi, S. (2019). Transnational Mobility and Education Continuity in Italian Compulsory Schools Teachers’ Narratives on Children’s Transnational Experiences. In: Maier-Höfer, C. (eds) Die Vielfalt der Kindheit(en) und die Rechte der Kinder in der Gegenwart. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-21238-4_3
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