Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
6
foreign pupils, bad Citizens
The Public Construction of Difference in a
Roman School
piero Vereni
(translated by Jennifer Radice)
a
precise quantification of the presence of foreigners seems to be one of the
main worries of italian political institutions. “how many are they?” is a common
question even in public schools. The ministry of education considers it extremely
important to set apart italian pupils from those “of non-italian citizenship” in-
dependently of their actual linguistic competence and their level of socioeco-
nomic integration (miur-ismu 2011a, 2011b). This quantitative attitude certainly
derives from the “blood” principle of italian citizenship, according to which one
is italian or foreign based on the nationality of one's parents, notwithstanding
one's place of birth (i.e., the
ius sanguinis
principle). Yet the deeper reason for
this fixation on numbers also relates to a more widespread social anxiety toward
otherness felt by ordinary italians, caused by a very rapid demographic change
still underway. after a century of emigration, italy became a receiving country
during the 1970s (Colombo 2004) without being socially and politically ready
for this unexpected turn. The number of incoming migrants has only acceler-
ated since the turn of the millennium. facing an unanticipated growing foreign
presence, italian institutions set in motion a numbering strategy which is read-
ily understandable, since the objective annotation of sheer numbers constitutes
a “minority” as a politically controllable entity and reinforces the status of the
“majority” that is in charge of counting (appadurai 2006).
This defensive attitude has been mirrored by italian legislation, which has
tied immigration with securitization by positing an almost necessarily positive
correlation between the
numbers
of foreigners and the idea of social
danger.
local
incidents and contextual situations have been reconfigured (herzfeld 1997, 2003)
99
Search WWH ::
Custom Search