Reproducing Inequalities in Teaching (Routledge Advances in Critical Diversities)

180 Pages·2022·16.38 MB·English

by  Stefania Pigliapoco

Reproducing Inequalities
in Teaching
The book analyses how lines of (non)belonging are traced and how notions of
(non)belonging circulate around and are attached to students from immigrant
backgrounds. Such circulations coalesce around values and practices linked
to gendered, ethnic majority middle-class norms, through which difference is
positioned and opposed in hierarchical terms.
This project analyses the relationship between teachers’ identities and
their attitudes and pedagogic dispositions towards students from immigrant
backgrounds, showing how these affect each other, contributing to their state
of (non)belonging in the educational setting and in the wider society. Attention
is brought to the pervasive and normalised background of neoliberal ideology,
permeating the educational environment. In examining the (problematic)
relationship between the previous elements, the book uncovers the intersectional
reproduction of lines of belonging – and not belonging.
While the analysis is centred on a study in Italy, it is situated within and provides
links to international connections, facilitating a wider and global understanding of
issues related to social justice. The book will be of interest to undergraduate and
postgraduate students and researchers across sociology, education, gender, and
cultural studies. Due to the intersectional approach and the width of the issues
explored, it will be of use to policymakers and practitioners.
Stefania Pigliapoco is Lecturer of Italian at the University of Lisbon, Faculty of
Humanities, Department of General and Romance Linguistics. She has a wide
experience as a foreign and additional language teacher in secondary schools in
Italy in multicultural contexts. Her research interests are in the fields of cultural
studies, gender studies, intersectionality, diversity and equality, and teacher
education.
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Vulca Fidolini
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Edited by Churnjeet Mahn, Matt Brim and Yvette Taylor
Reproducing Inequalities in Teaching
Gender, Class and Ethnicity in Italian Education
Stefania Pigliapoco
For more information go to www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-Critical-
Diversities/book-series/RACD
Reproducing Inequalities
in Teaching
Gender, Class and Ethnicity in Italian
Education
Stefania Pigliapoco
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 Stefania Pigliapoco
The right of Stefania Pigliapoco to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pigliapoco, Stefania, author.
Title: Reproducing inequalities in teaching : gender, class and
ethnicity in Italian education / Stefania Pigliapoco.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Routledge advances in critical diversities | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022032266 (print) | LCCN 2022032267
(ebook) | ISBN 9780367753603 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780367753610 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003162193
(ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Educational equalization—Italy. | Immigrants—
Education—Italy. | Identity (Philosophical concept)—Identity. |
Teachers—Italy—Social conditions. | Multicultural education—
Italy. | Discrimination in education—Italy.
Classification: LCC LC213.3.I8 P54 2023 (print) | LCC LC213.3.I8
(ebook) | DDC 379.2/60945—dc23/eng/20220909
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022032266
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022032267
ISBN: 978-0-367-75360-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-75361-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16219-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003162193
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgements x
1 The context 1
1.1 Inequalities in Covid-19 times 1
1.2 Students with immigrant backgrounds 4
1.3 Students with immigrant backgrounds in the Italian
education system 5
1.4 Being Italian, being a foreigner 9
1.5 Interculturalism as a European policy 10
1.6 Interculturalism in Italy 12
1.7 Neoliberal background 14
1.8 Education in Italy: elitism, democratisation,
modernisation 16
References 18
2 Key theories and concepts 23
2.1 An intersectional approach 23
2.2 Social class: habitus, field, capital 24
2.3 Performativity 27
2.4 Teachers and gender 27
2.5 Ethnicity 30
2.6 A note on use of terminology 31
2.7 The collection of data 31
References 37
3 Teachers’ perceptions of social class 40
3.1 Teachers’ classed identities 40
3.2 Just a normal family 42
vi Contents
3.3 A simple family 47
3.4 A family ‘of a certain kind’ 50
3.5 Language as a field of tensions 54
3.6 Students’ classed identities: it all depends on the family 59
3.7 It’s not only how poor you are: cultural capital and
economic capital 60
References 62
4 Teachers’ views on gender 64
4.1 A job for women: time flexibility 64
4.2 Disputing a feminine essence 72
4.3 The teaching environment: lack of gender bias or gender
segregation? 79
4.4 The gendered ‘foreign pupil’ 83
References 89
5 Constructing (non)belonging 92
5.1 Drawing lines of (non)belonging: ‘us’ and ‘them’ 92
5.2 Time and language as factors of belonging 98
5.3 Yesterday’s ‘others’: the Albanians and the Romanians 102
5.4 Today’s ‘others’: the Muslims 107
5.5 Values and religion 111
5.6 A deficit view of immigrant pupils and families 116
5.7 School tracks 118
References 122
6 Teachers’ understanding of neoliberal education policies
and the shaping of power relations in the classroom 126
6.1 The value of citizenship 126
6.2 The ‘model minority’ individuals and families 129
6.3 Between policy and practice: benevolence and power in the
classroom 129
6.4 “As if they were all Italians” 132
6.5 A less Eurocentric view or a tokenistic
multiculturalism? 135
6.6 A neoliberal Western habitus 136
References 142
Contents vii
7 Linking teachers’ dispositions and pedagogies 145
7.1 How teachers’ gender, social class, and ethnicity
matter 145
7.2 Teachers’ identity and attitudes towards students
with immigrant backgrounds: a contentious
relationship 147
7.3 Constructions of (non)belonging 149
7.4 Neoliberal views on education: an uncomfortable
acceptance 150
7.5 Recommendations and implications 153
7.6 Future research 155
7.7 Final reflections 156
References 158
Appendix: About the participants 161
Index 167
Preface
The interest for this study was borne out of my long experience as a second-
ary school teacher in multicultural classes in the Italian education system, where
pupils with an immigrant background have on average lower attainment compared
to their peers of Italian origin. They finish more often the school course late and
with lower grades, more frequently attend vocational and technical schools rather
than the more academically oriented licei, and go to university in a lower percent-
age. The focus of this study is the role played by the teachers and head teachers,
in particular their perception of the identity and needs of pupils with a migratory
background in relation to social class, ethnicity, and gender. I also analyse how
these perceptions, combined with the way of interpreting national and local edu-
cational policies, have repercussions on educational interventions aimed at these
students. Carrying out the fieldwork in Italy, while being based at the University
of Strathclyde, Scotland, put me at the crossroads of different educational cultures
and policy moments. The study benefitted from my being immersed in a culture
where social class and ethnicity are talked about openly, and where the neoliberal
policies in education that were being pursued in Italy with recent reforms were
already well-established practices.
This study contributes to existing international scholarship around the repro-
duction of social inequalities in the educational environment. Previous literature
links inequalities to the social class, gender, and ethnicity of the students; a study
on the relation between how teachers perceive and position themselves and their
pupils in terms of social class, gender, and ethnicity, and how this informs teach-
ers’ and head teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards their students with immi-
grant backgrounds, has more rarely been attempted. Equally, the consequences
of these perceptions on how teachers and head teachers understand policies and
frame pedagogies have been underexplored at the international level and have not
been the object of specific attention in the Italian context. Moreover, in Italy stud-
ies on inclusion of pupils with immigrant backgrounds have been mainly carried
out in Northern Italy, while both Central and Southern regions are underexplored;
they have mainly considered academic achievement and interethnic relations in
the classroom.
Preface ix
Adopting an intersectional perspective, this study gives a contribution towards
the investigation of links between the elements mentioned earlier, addressing in
particular the following research questions:
• How do the teachers’ and head teachers’ social class, gender, and ethnic
identities shape their perceptions of students with immigrant backgrounds in
Italy?
• How do the teachers’ and head teachers’ perceptions of students with immi-
grant backgrounds in Italy shape their pedagogical attitudes?
• How do their understanding of education policies inform their beliefs and
pedagogical practices in classes with students with immigrant backgrounds?
The first chapter describes the international and national concerns around
social justice that have generated the motivations for this study and its context.
Chapter 2 outlines the key theories and concepts utilised to analyse the data of
the study. Taking up an intersectional approach, I consider aspects such as social
class, belonging, gender, and ethnicity/culture, making use of the concepts of cap-
ital, habitus, and field as elaborated by Pierre Bourdieu and subsequent feminist
elaborations, and to the concept of performativity, as used by Judith Butler. This
chapter gives also a brief description of how data was collected. Chapters 3– 6
analyse the themes emerging from the research. Chapter 3 is about social class:
how teachers make sense of their own social class belonging and how this affects
their dispositions towards their pupils, in particular those with immigrant back-
grounds. Chapter 4 is about how teachers construct themselves as being gendered
in their profession and how this can reflect on how they exert their professional-
ism and construct their students with an immigrant background. Chapter 5 focuses
on culture/ethnicity and on how a sense of (non)belonging is constituted around
these elements. In these chapters, I stress the intersectionality of these and other
elements, in shaping experiences and perceptions. Finally, Chapter 6 examines
the influence of the wider context and its reflections on pedagogies. In Chapter 7,
I discuss the findings and draw conclusions around the implications for teachers
and teacher education. I then make recommendations for further investigations in
the area and end with some final reflections.