Abstract

Postcolonial theory and/in the Italian classroom. The paper aims to discuss how postcolonial critical theory – as “a persistent critique of the hidden agenda of ethico-political exclusion,” as well as “a sustained though necessarily fragmented stand against the vanguardism of theory” (Spivak 1996 [1980], 99) – may help to rearrange researchers’ as well as teachers’ usual ways of considering (and teaching in) diverse Italian classrooms and schools. A postcolonial-oriented way of critically understanding educational contexts could be seen, on the one hand, as a way to grasp and analyze the multiplicity of discourses (also colonial discourses) and aspects (gender, social class, race, age, etc.) that intersect each other and concur to the subjectification processes of diverse-background pupils within migrant and postmigrant schools. On the other hand, a postcolonial critical perspective could grasp the contrapuntal multiplicity (Said 1993) of colonial and postcolonial relationships that today still connect pupils, teachers and researchers within Italian schools, and that could perhaps be considered as a sort of common field of tensions, encounters and dialogue among different individuals and groups.

Keywords

Pages

43-49