The present study, based on data concerning 2328 immigrant children attending a representative sample of 561 schools, investigates the impact of various group, family and individual characteristics as well as proficiency in the national language on acceptance and friendship among classmates, while controlling for measurement errors by means of a…

Recent developments in the acculturation literature have emphasized the importance of adopting "intergroup perspectives" that provide a valuable background for investigating how acculturation orientations (i.e., maintenance of the culture of origin and the adoption of the destination culture) of adolescents from migrant families are…

This study focuses on the behavior of interactive agents and how to ground their implementation in psychology and cognitive modeling to capture fundamental psycho-pedagogical elements to deliver an effective competency-based training and assessment tool for teachers, trainers, and educators working in the school context. The study describes the…

For Foucault, discourses shape people's knowledge and inform how they act in a society. Power over others is legitimated by dominant discourses, a means through which hegemony discloses itself: a given group is entitled to oppress another. As a parent-educator based in Italy, I see such discourses manifesting themselves in actions and speeches. As…

This cross-cultural and cross-sectional study investigated Italian and US children's perceptions of interethnic and interracial friendships, also known as intergroup friendships. A total sample of 226 children attending two urban, elementary schools in a middle-sized Northeastern US city and a middle-sized northern Italian city, were interviewed…

This article examined how the group membership of the person being judged influenced the level of moral reasoning. Nearly 200 ordinary Italians were given two measures of moral ingroup inclusiveness (the Bogardus social distance scale and a self-categorization measure) and the short form of Rest's Defining Issues Test (DIT). The protagonists in…

The issue of diversity, in its broadest sense, is discussed here in its relation to social cohesion, cross-cultural relations, ingroup-outgroup relations and educational interventions. The main thesis of the paper is that real social cohesion in an ingroup rests on the acknowledgment of and the dialog with the diversities of the members of the…

A study was conducted to test the effects of indirect contact through book reading on the improvement of Italian students' attitudes, stereotypes, and behavioral intentions toward immigrants. The results indicated that adolescents who read a book concerning intercultural topics, compared to those who read a book unrelated to intercultural themes…

This article examines so-called secondary transfer effects of intergroup contact, a phenomenon whereby positive intergroup contact experiences can influence attitudes not only toward encountered (primary) outgroups but also toward other (secondary) outgroups that were not initially involved in the intergroup encounter. The current study relies on…

This paper explores the role of mediated intergroup contact in improving intergroup attitudes between Italian speakers and German speakers in South Tyrol, Italy. Specifically, we examine how German-language television consumption affects attitudes towards the German-speaking group among Italian- speaking youth. The data ("N" = 229) were…

This study investigates the sense of community and interethnic relations in two different metropolitan areas that vary in ethnic heterogeneity. The study was conducted in Milan, Italy using a sample of 318 participants living in different city districts that vary in ethnic heterogeneity (low vs. high). The participants completed a questionnaire…

In this article, we use the framework of critical race theory (CRT) to show how race, language, and schooling have played out in the historical project of the Italian nation-state. We then demonstrate how this historic racialized identity construction is currently excluding immigrants from Italian national identity. Finally, we argue that CRT can…

The basic assumption of this paper is that school's potential to improve cross-cultural relations, as well as interpersonal relations in general, is enormous. This assumption is supported by a number of theoretical considerations and by the analysis of data we obtained from a study we conducted on the attitudes toward diversity and…

Studied the interpersonal interactions during group work by children designated by their peers as bullies, victims, and bystanders. Results for 117 Italian elementary school students suggest that cooperative group work had an impact on the expression of some emotions, although the tendency of victims to deny their feelings in comparison to the…

Knowledge of foreign languages is important in facilitating economic and cultural relations between countries. The educational systems of countries should take this pragmatic aspect of foreign language instruction into consideration. (Text is in French.) (TL)