- 1 The project began at the start of the academic year 2008–2009 and the research and organisational a (...)
1The research Students with disabilities, children of migrants,1 promoted by the City of Bologna in conjunction with the University of Bologna, aims to explore the situation of migrant families with disabled children aged 0-14.
2According to the most recent Caritas/Migrantes (2008, 2010, 2011), Emilia Romagna is one of Italian regions with the highest percentage of students who are children of migrants, with a significant increase in primary and middle schools, where the percentage of migrant students often exceeds 13%. In the Bologna area alone, there are citizens of 142 different countries, bearing witness to the fact that both incoming and outgoing migratory flows are no longer limited to a few areas, but rather constitute a worldwide phenomenon, common to every continent. Moreover, the migratory phenomenon is unfolding in a period of crisis, strongly influenced by the process of globalization, which deeply affects the host countries and has made them “fragile” from a social, cultural and economic standpoint.
3This exploratory research project is one of the first of its kind in Italy and Europe, if we consider the specific Italian context which guarantees inclusion of pupils with disabilities in schools; it is an original research undertaking, as it looks into the scarcely investigated situation in which two factors converge – migration and disability – and their combined effect, which has not yet seen any significant development. The subject of disabled children of migrant families is not only relatively new to the national scene, but is also largely unexplored at an international level, as research began only in 2000. Currently in the teaching world there is a very heated debate on the implications of disability and migration as a “dual diversity,” and numerous studies and research initiatives have been undertaken with the aim of defining strategies, guidelines and tools for an effective education action geared toward inclusion: the studies and research have mainly focused on one subject only, either disability or migration. We believe that the issue of defining an appropriate approach – fostering the inclusion of the students we are concerned with here – must be addressed with the theoretical tools and specific interpretative categories of special and intercultural pedagogy: despite having their own specificity, both disciplines also have many clear points of contact when dealing with the disabled children of migrants. It is essential that there be common thought on several key themes proposed in the research project, such as the definition of the status of disabled children of migrants, in an intercultural and historical context which has seen Italy increasingly committed to and leading the field of inclusion to reduce handicaps but struggling to deal with inclusion processes for migrants and their children.
4The universe of minors with migrant parents in Italy is very varied, as there are many factors which contribute to its complexity; terms like “foreign minor” (very commonplace) do not express the depth or plurality of situations (unaccompanied or reunited minors, those born in Italy of migrant parents, etc.) and for this reason in our own research we have chosen to use the expression “children of migrants.” Our major concern was to avoid the term “immigrant,” which has had an increasingly negative social connotation, potentially excluding the positive dimensions of the person it refers to. An analysis of international literature also reveals that “migrant” is the most frequently used term (or at least has been since 1998, with the studies by Marie Rose Moro).
5Italian law considers the children of migrants “foreigners” or “non-Italian citizens” even when they are born in our country; for this reason, Italy must amend the legislation guaranteeing the right to citizenship, just as it must change the terminology and implicit conceptualization, above all considering the high percentage of children of migrants who were born in Italy [according to data of the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR, 2006) and Caritas/Migrantes (2010, 2011), 37% of the children of migrants were born in Italy].
6We can say that this subject – students with disabilities who are children of migrants – is fairly new not only to the national but also the international scene, where it became a subject of research only at the start of the new century.
7While scientific literature concerning teaching, welcoming and inclusion strategies for non-native Italian speaking students, as well as that concerning disabilities, is very broad, the combination of the two subjects has not yet seen any significant development. However, particularly in English-speaking areas, there have been some research initiatives covering the subject: the main focus of the studies identified is the family (how the child’s progress is perceived, the relationship with schools, etc.).
8In this regard, we outline below some of the most significant studies for our field of inquiry. First of all, the paper by Al-Hassan and Gardner (2002), who offer a number of useful suggestions for teachers having to deal with disabled children of migrant families. The two scholars state that although direct parental involvement has been a legal right in the United States since 1975, this right is in actual fact difficult to put into practice due to a series of obstacles that teachers encounter in their everyday practices. Al-Hassan and Gardner (2002) point out, for example, that language is the main barrier to parental involvement in their children’s education (parents do not understand their children’s educational needs, much less the relative documents, and often do not feel not confident when communicating directly with teachers). The scholars suggest, therefore, that teachers should speak in English (if the parents know the language) and/or involve an interpreter and/or cultural mediator (possibly chosen by the family itself). It is thus a guide on how to relate to parents and, more specifically, involve them in their children’s education. These simple, concrete suggestions are also considered by other scholars including Reyes-Blanes (2002) as fundamental elements for the success of inclusion strategies.
- 2 Lusa Lo interviewed 24 Asian families that had immigrated to the USA.
9A study conducted by Lusa, 20092 – to investigate how families perceived their involvement in the education of disabled children – shows that parents feel very involved and interested in activities at home (like checking homework for example) but appear to be poorly active or involved in school activities (such as periodic meetings at school between teachers and parents). Like the previous one, this study stresses that the main obstacle to parental involvement in education and school is the language barrier. Furthermore, Lusa demonstrates that greater parental involvement results in improved school performance of the children and an advantage for teachers; the author however states that actual family involvement remains very low and schools are not always interested in hearing parents’ opinions.
10In a study conducted in Great Britain – commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation – Chamba and Ahmad (1999) observed that access to services was directly proportional to knowledge of the language; they highlighted, moreover, that foreign families were at a disadvantage because of the lack of family support networks and had larger areas of need, including access to opportunities for socialization and greater service guidance.
11Concerning the migrant/disability combination, the Italian scientific community has only just begun to address this subject: among the few studies undertaken, we note that a number of interesting reflections on the topic have been published by Caldin, Argiropoulos and Dainese (2010) and Goussot (2010).
12Caldin, Argiropoulos and Dainese (2010) focus on the perceptions of migrant families, who state some difficulty in being understood – by professionals – also concerning their day-to-day efforts, the complex dimensions of their everyday belonging to different cultures. The distance from loved ones left behind in the country of origin, the lack of significant relations in the new places of living is perceived as two of the toughest elements. Moreover, the three scholars show how there is also a rigid division of roles within migrant families (between husband and wife), where relations with the outside world are almost exclusively left to the man. This attitude is not only a cultural issue, but also represents the language and communication difficulties reported by most of the mothers, who are much less familiar with the Italian language than their husbands.
- 3 The study is based on qualitative interviews of fathers, mothers and teachers of nine disabled pupi (...)
13More specifically, Goussot (2010)3 focuses above all on families, pointing out that families’ perceptions and situations are strongly conditioned by several factors such as culture of origin, the circumstances and reasons underlying their migration, their experience in Italy and their expectations as to whether the child can be cured; mothers in particular express interpretations of their child’s disability which are strongly influenced by the culture of care in the country of origin and the processes of integration of themselves and their family into the Italian context.
14In a study carried out in Greece, with a group of 1100 migrant students aged between 10 and 12 years and a control group of 713 Greek students and 165 teachers, Palaiologou (2007) assessed the level of difficulty and the factors affecting the progress of students from the ex-Soviet Union. From the research it emerges that teachers tend to assess all students using the same criteria, without any special attention to adopting teaching methods that are attentive to the differences among students (needs, characteristics, leanings, life stories, etc.) or to the cultural origin and the language spoken at home with the parents (migrant children generally speak their parents’ native language at home). The researcher states that both the “cultural origin” and the “language spoken at home” are statistically important variables for the learning and school success of migrant children. In this regard, the researcher states the need to adopt balanced educational practices, a “Bilingual Intercultural Educational Model” in order to foster social and intercultural justice.
15In Italy, to understand the reasons for poor school achievement among migrant students, Murineddu, Duca and Cornoldi (2006) compared the results obtained by (Italian and other) students in some tests. The researchers observe who, with equal cognitive skills, migrant children are often assessed less positively than their classmates.
16This exploratory research project, with an initial hypothesis based on the role that school (teachers, students, educators, directors, other school workers) could play not only as an educational institution, but also with the function of managing and supporting disabled children and/with their migrant families within the host society. School therefore as an educational agency that should network with healthcare, social and education services to provide and foster inclusive processes. Moreover, the bibliographic research has sufficiently confirmed the further hypothesis that inclusion of migrant children is facilitated by their exposure to the Italian language in “informal places” (sports, outside play, after-school clubs and other social locations), not directly linked to school learning.
17The project aims to combine research and action and was thus set up with a light, flexible and adaptable structure in an attempt to involve parents, professionals, educators and teachers dealing with this complex, little known area as much as possible.
18The main objective of the research was to become thoroughly familiar with the subject under inquiry, analyzing in particular its pedagogic aspects: it is a quantitative and qualitative investigation geared to developing some educational and pedagogical guidelines for supporting disabled children of migrant families in education services and schools. The research was divided into the following phases.
19Overview of available studies and research on the topic of investigation; definition of the research focus; development of methodological aspects and investigative tools (for example: testing the questionnaire; interviews with people who have first-hand experience; focus groups with institutional figures; home interviews with migrant parents of disabled children, etc.); contact with institutional and other stakeholders to be operationally involved in the data collection.
20Collection of qualitative and quantitative data from educational establishments (preschools and schools), operational services and families; identification of positive experiences within the city area; analysis and processing of the gathered data; production of the research paper.
21Having gathered further documentation (through focus groups, interviews, activities with middle school students) and identified some positive inclusion experiences, we drew up a number of recommendations which can be used to improve the strategies for the inclusion of disabled children of migrants and families in the education and social service systems and in schools; we defined documentation tools and procedures, as well as materials for the dissemination of the acquired data and pedagogical and educational recommendations.
22The researchers collected quantitative and qualitative data, using different kinds of research tools: on-line questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. To obtain more in-depth information concerning this phenomenon, we decided to involve anyone who in their specific roles interacts with disabled children of migrants.
23Table 1 shows the number and types of people involved in the research (class teachers, support teachers, school directors, students, parents), and the relative tools used. We considered quantitative-qualitative tools to be most appropriate to this exploratory research, at the end of which we identified which could be new areas of inquiry (refer to the relative paragraph in this paper). The qualitative data was fundamental in offering a photograph of all the aspects of the migration phenomenon, including the individual, family and social features of the disabled children as well as the characteristics and relationship between the parents’ migration path and the child’s disability (Table 2).
Table 1. Number and role of people involved and tools used
|
Professions/roles
|
Tools used
|
People
|
|
Class and support teachers
|
On-line questionnaires (all schools) and questionnaire (teaching staff)
|
304
|
|
|
|
|
School directors/class and support staff/school workers Pupils
|
Interviews/focus groups/individual activities
|
91
|
|
|
|
|
Health workers (GPs, neuropsychiatric staff, educators)
|
Semi-structured interviews
|
6
|
|
|
|
|
Educational service workers (preschools; pedagogical coordinators, educators, etc.)
|
Semi-structured interviews/focus groups
|
37
|
|
|
|
|
Social services workers/associations/volunteers
|
Semi-structured interviews
|
5
|
|
|
|
|
Migrant families
|
Semi-structured interviews
|
33 (12 families)
|
|
|
|
|
Members of inter-institutional round tables and scientific teams
|
Planned meetings
|
37
|
|
|
513
|
Table 2. Organizations involved
|
Organizations involved
|
|
|
Schools (directors, teachers, pupils)
|
18
|
|
|
|
Schools (on-line questionnaires)
|
All schools of Bologna
|
|
|
|
Preschools
|
6
|
|
|
|
Local Health Board of Bologna (child psychiatry, paediatricians, educators)
|
ASL Bologna
|
|
|
|
Municipal authority
|
City of Bologna
|
|
|
|
Parishes
|
1
|
|
|
|
Associations
|
4
|
|
|
|
Migrant families
|
12 families (33 people)
|
|
|
|
Cooperatives
|
3
|
|
|
|
Social care steering committee
|
1
|
24The research addressed various areas of investigation: the relationship between the migration experience, family and child, and the condition of disability; communication and language problems; issues relating to the diagnosis of the disability and opportunities and access to services; health and social situations; care practices; the perception of disability in the home country compared to that in this country; mapping of some positive experiences and inclusion/assistance strategies in the city, such as the presence of cultural mediators and/or educational support staff; identification of strengths and problem areas, in institutional and relational terms, which may affect the education of minors, with particular reference to the issue of social inclusion and focusing the investigation on the areas of greatest relevance to the pedagogic and educational approach.
25Secondly, we identified orientations, tools and strategies, which can promote the inclusion of disabled children of migrant families in educational structures. This involved reading the variables and conditions, observing behavior and investigating attitudes, which may enhance the care and well-being of the children in different contexts (organizational methods facilitating inclusion; tools and strategies aimed at improving communication with families; educational approaches and interpersonal styles best suited to minors, etc.).
26To reduce the number of variables in this already complex research to a minimum, we chose to deal with pupils certified pursuant to Italian law 104/92 as having both parents with “non-Italian citizenship.”
27In our opinion, it was important to gather the opinions of migrant parents in order to understand their views on three main issues: disability, children’s education and migration. These themes are not separate, but rather interact, being interwoven by the cultural, social, political and individual factors that affect families. The families we worked with were helpful and cooperative. We found contact information for families to interview through national and ethnic associations, voluntary associations, schools and social and health services: these are the most relevant contexts involving these families. Ethnic associations did not offer many suggestions on how to contact migrant families of disabled students: these associations focus on various aspects such as political representation, job seeking or contacts with the home country, but they are not concerned with disability. There are many migrants’ associations in our field of research: formal, informal, ethnic, regional, religious, service-oriented (e.g. cultural-linguistic mediation) and political; however, they tend not to consider disability among their members as a relevant issue. At the time of the research, none of the associations we met with ran any specific projects for these families (disability + migrant status). Moreover, an ambivalent attitude was also noted in this area by the formal services towards the broad range of associations: appropriate practices for mutual collaboration aiming to build a multi-dimensional support network for migrant families with disabled children have as yet not been adopted.
28Indeed, our research showed that migrant families have no contacts with associations for disabled people’s families: despite the fact that all people working in this area recognize the importance of having the support of an association, there are no organized channels that offer the possibility for contact between migrant families and such associations. Moreover, we discovered that there are many reasons for the scarce presence of migrant families in associations for disabled people’s families: these include practical reasons, such as the difficulties that these families experience daily (work, home…), but there may also be reasons linked to how peers’ associations or problem sharing are perceived. Among the staff of these associations there is a common belief that migrant families are part of a large social network and do not need outside support concerning their child’s disability, as they receive enough help from their compatriots or relatives.
29On the basis of the data we collected and the statements we gathered, we can reasonably affirm that the fact of belonging to an ethnic or religious group plays an ambivalent role: such groups act as a supporting, protective network in the early period after migration, but then become a controlling agent and can exercise psychological pressure on disabled people’s families.
30Parents with disabled children (10 families out of 12) almost always choose to live in Italy, in spite of all the difficulties this may entail, just in order to have a guarantee of support and assistance for their disabled children. These families are not in Italy “temporarily,” on a provisional basis, but rather they are families whose members have present and future plans to remain in Italy, which makes the situation of disability a long-term or permanent one. Indeed, when asked by the interviewer if children with tetraparesis (like the girl who was the subject of the interview) go to school in Tunisia (country of origin), the father responded. The experience of school exclusion in the countries of origin is common to almost all our interviewees, although to different extents from country to country:
No, I don’t think so… the help we get here is not the same, I am lucky to be here, I can tell you, very lucky. No, look, here in Italy I am a non-EU citizen, and I have been treated very well, both in Bologna, and in Florence, and in Ferrara as well I was treated very well. [K 4]
In my country […] children like my daughter don’t go to school, they have no staff, no support teacher… the level of assistance is not the same, we are lucky to be here. [W 9]
31But there are also other situations in which the lack of networks of relatives or friends makes everything more complicated. Poor family relations are described by most of our interviewees (9 families out of 12):
Next year we are planning for my mother to return definitively to Peru, as she can’t cope any more. She came to give me a hand because when my daughter was born my wife suffered from post-natal depression. We managed to bring her here with a letter of invitation, and she stayed here with no papers. [K 5]
32We can perceive from the words of the parents that in Italy (and in Bologna) they are being helped to protect their children and to handle their problems; from a first reading of the interviews (8 families out of 12) with parents, we can also see that there are great difficulties in everyday life such as inappropriate or temporary housing, etc.
I have been here for 18 years, all my children were born in Italy and I have only 1% of the rights of Italians!! We have been in this apartment for 10 years and we are still temporary. Due to a bureaucratic error at the housing office (a box not ticked) we were taken off the list and now we risk being evicted any minute. [K 6]
It was a really bad time for us… because we were homeless, we lived in one room with some other people from our country, it was a really tough time for us. [W 10]
33The failure of some offices (police station, etc.) to inform them correctly and promptly of their rights, the lack of any help (apart from school), the difficulty in establishing profitable relations with social workers, parents’ fatalistic attitude toward their child’s destiny (in some cultures) preclude any constructive action.
34Within the limited horizons of our research, we can state that parents (10 families out of 12) consider the role played by the school to be a central one, as, despite everything, it meets the needs of families and welcomes them.
It was Cristina and Emanuela. And they were so fond of X and he of the teachers that we’re still on friendly terms with them, they come to our home to visit him. They helped him a good deal, they did not let him stay on his own, they always made him stay with the group. [K 4]
When we got here, we found a private infant school. Luckily they took him there, because all the municipal ones wouldn’t take him as we didn’t have all the papers […]. There they began to watch our boy. Until then we thought he was retarded because he hardly spoke at all. When he was three and a half he only talked to himself, and we could see that something was wrong […]. So they helped us, at that time, and advised us to contact the developmental neuropsychiatry department. [W 10]
35This is confirmed by the teachers themselves (see questionnaires, focus groups, etc.), who request, however, greater support from local services, also to increase the participation of migrant families (with the aid of cultural mediators).
36Migrant families with disabled children experience a two-fold source of stress: the diagnosis of the disability, to begin with, and the intrinsic stress associated with the very condition of being migrant. A common consequence of these two circumstances – migration and the birth of a child with disabilities – is a shrinking of their social networks (Valtolina, 2000).
37Sluszki (2008) writes:
[…] any migration, even within the borders of a country, but in particular transnational migration, throws people into a socially stressful condition. At the same time, dramatically upturning and impoverishing the “personal social cocoon,” the main support system of the social and personal network they are part of.
38The fact that social networks act as a buffer for stressful or traumatic situations by positively modifying their consequences has oriented policy makers and legislators, with the aim of increasing the involvement of the various informal and formal components of the local community in the construction of services.
39Schools play a fundamental role in a disabled child’s education and are an important point of reference for migrant families. Teachers (83%) brought the issue of relationships with families to our attention: they explained how the school is a hub relied on by families to access the complex system of services available for their disabled children; they observed how important it is for the family to be involved as much as possible and as directly as possible in the educational process of their children; and they identified communication and participation with the families as some of the most crucial elements for the success of an inclusion strategy.
The sharing of the care role of small children with a family still goes through the mother… if the mother isn’t able to talk of her experience with the child, it becomes difficult to share this care role. [Z 2]
I think very often it is the family that causes the obstacle: partly because they don’t take part in class initiatives, even the families of non-disabled migrant children. They generally tend to not participate, perhaps frequenting their own ethnic groups more, and clearly this hinders inclusion. [T 3]
40The relationship between family and school must necessarily be based on solid trust, but this is not always the case: very often it is in preschool services that parents entrust very young children to the care of the teachers, as teachers are more careful to build relationships on a daily basis through a continuous exchange of information. The method of relating changes between preschools and compulsory schools as a result of the change in the logic underlying the different types of school: parents and teachers work together to care for the young in preschool services, whereas in other types of schools families “delegate” the school to educate their children, who are no longer in a context of care but of learning. Inclusion in education services is a crucial moment for families, as was confirmed by educational coordinators interviewed (75%):
I can see how preschools become the first testing ground for social inclusion. In these settings you are seen, your disability is shown off to everyone, you are confronted with normality: your child does not walk, while other children do. Parents suffer a serious setback in terms of their social relations, they risk shutting themselves away, hiding their child’s condition. This is a kind of genuine grief, which leads them to withdraw into themselves. In this psychological context, being able to frequent others through school returns them to the social path.
41Preschool teachers (85%) strongly underlined the need to build trusting relationships with families, based on empathy with the parents:
I learned the gestures the mother used with her child to make him understand, to make him repeat the word correctly, and we followed this approach for the whole year, also with the mother, and even the grids in the book were designed together with the mother. I agreed with colleagues that we should involve her and see whether we shared the same vision.
42Another teacher told us:
It works even better trying to meet them half way… trying to be empathic with these parents and making them understand that you accept them but you would also like to be accepted, that you want them to understand that you have the same difficulties, that just as they would like to make themselves known to you, you, too, are trying to make yourself known to them and therefore you are both in exactly the same position but with two different roles, the interpersonal level is the same as there are two new people, and I see that this has always worked because you make them understand that their difficulty is also your difficulty… the child acts as a bridge, and whether the child goes home happy is the litmus test for the parents. And if we are serene and happy with the child and have been able to offer serenity and happiness to the child, we can indirectly offer this to the parents as well. I think this is the only strategy that pays off because they put something so sensitive and precarious in your trust…
43This is what we have found out: teachers often insist on the fundamental role of families in the success of the inclusion strategy for disabled children of migrants, so a relationship based on trust is an element that makes the process easier. This relationship is structured differently at different school levels and requires a strong awareness among teachers of their own role and duties towards the students’ families: the school and its teachers represent the point of contact with the social service system; they are the first guide to the complex Italian welfare system. In the past, teachers provided a guidance service where students’ families could find all the information they needed about social services. The trust built up by schools is a very important element in the care of disabled children and has great leverage for the success of the inclusion process: the family and the school community cooperate to ensure the student’s well-being and work together in a coherent educational process. We learned that migrant families with disabled children need a point of reference in order to access social services, as these are quite difficult to approach because of complex bureaucratic procedures; sometimes they find this point of reference in their children’s schools and thus schools play an important role in their children’s education, and families place their children’s care in the hands of teachers and schools.
44Concerning the inclusion of the disabled children of migrant families and the possibilities for successful inclusion processes, some common elements emerge from the testimonials offered by our interviewees. The continuity of the referred educational figures is seen to be very important: supply teachers and the turnover of support teachers negatively impact the inclusion process and the projects developed for disabled children of migrant families. A high percentage of teachers (73%) state that:
We have permanent places for handicap support, but teachers prefer general class teacher positions… even if they risk losing their job they are rather reticent. So the handicap support roles are filled by staff with fixed-term contracts, which offers less guarantee of continuity. [Y 1]
45Team work is also an element for the success of disabled children of migrant families: support teachers should be considered an additional resources for the whole class, without significant differences between the class teacher and the support teacher in the management of the disabled pupil and in the co-responsibility for their educational path. However, rarely do support teachers feel “equal” to class teachers, and many (68%) state their difficulties in achieving recognition from both colleagues and the students in the class.
Support teachers must be integrated, because otherwise they remain a separate figure […]. They are part of the teaching body and have the same level of authority, if they don’t understand this they won’t be accepted. [Y 2]
46When a child of migrants also has a disability, the inclusion process becomes even more complex: for this reason we believe that the work of service providers and teachers in the socio-educational sphere should be supported and facilitated by the research community and by scientific reflection.
47These are our first and partial considerations about migrant families with disabled children:
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how they perceive and explain their children’s disability is strongly influenced by the family’s social position: it seems that the parents’ opinion and perception of their child’s disability is influenced by their local network and their relationship with their home country (Goussot, 2010; Moro, 1998);
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the relevance of the children’s disability in the migration project: in some cases we analyzed, the experience with the Italian social and health system was very satisfactory, but in other cases it was difficult and sometimes dramatic, especially when the parents had arrived in Italy without proper documents and were thus exposed to the risk of ending up living off the grid. All the families we interviewed spent some time in Italy without a residence permit. In the first cases we mention, the connection with services and institutions is the key to enabling the family to confront the child’s disability and follow the steps in the inclusion process with knowledge and awareness of the Italian system. In the best examples of interaction between families and institutions, we found that schools and other educational institutions play a decisive role in families’ choices;
-
the network (the formal one of services, as well as the informal one of relatives and compatriots) in which the families live is another important element that influences the inclusion process. What emerges is a difficulty in explaining their daily hardships, making (social) service providers and other agencies aware of these difficulties; another important element that emerges very powerfully is the social loneliness that in some cases develops into isolation for these families, who experience a condition of social invisibility with no significant relations in their daily routines. This kind of situation particularly affects mothers (in many cases young women): they often do not speak any Italian and need to be accompanied everywhere by their husbands. Some families try to bring their relatives to Italy to help care for the disabled child, but when this happens, the family has to cope with the economic difficulties of supporting another “unproductive” family member (Gardou, 2006; Mortenson & Oliver Relin, 2009);
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in some cases, the families do not understand the training or enabling processes that the health services suggest for their children very well, often because communication with the service providers is not very effective and in many cases these families do not collaborate with the school and fail to fulfill all the activities that offer them empowerment. Migrant families are often uninformed about their rights and often they are in a conflictual relationship with social services: their bewilderment about services and rights causes many difficulties in the day-to-day management of disabled children (Al-Hassan & Gardner, 2002);
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schools perhaps play the main role in determining the success of the inclusion process: they represent the natural environment to place the disabled child in. The parents entrust their children to the teachers and all school staff, and a relationship is established with schools, which in many cases flows into the perception of schools as a channel for access to all the other services (Sabatino, 2008; Favaro & Demetrio, 2004).
48Based on these observations, and reflecting in particular on the conditions and problems in the relations between migrant families and services, institutions, etc. any potential social operation must consider:
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the ability of existing services to respond to the needs of migrant families with disabled children taking into consideration cultural differences and the families’ different social conditions;
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the level of staff training and specialization and the possibility of using professional mediators who are also trained in the field of disability. We are considering a multicultural context and the dimension of disability is more complex and culturally influenced (Caldin, 2011; Crouzier & Gardou, 2005; Gobbo, 2000);
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the information circulated by service providers concerning both immigration and disability should be detailed and accompanied by explanations, which help to understand the importance of the contents. Having a problem does not automatically mean understanding how this problem is tackled in a given cultural, institutional, administrative or social context (Palaiologou, 2007; Watson & Houtz, 2006);
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implementing and supporting development areas together with “self-help/mutual-aid” parental groups (groups of immigrant parents and mixed groups, with or without Italian citizenship and with or without disabled children). Moreover, to this end the organizations active in the local area which traditionally deal with solidarity in immigration and disability must also be targeted (Caldin & Serra, 2011);
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proposing and managing the involvement of ethnic associations that are widely representative of the different nationalities present in the community with respect to issues relating to disability and inclusion processes. It becomes indispensable to discuss the possible aims of inclusion and integration, considered and implemented by immigrant associations;
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implementing and strengthening home care services for families with disabled children in order to reduce the burden of family management, improve communication with institutions and local services, provide guidance and enable better use of the available resources (Caldin & Serra, 2011);
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promoting and actively supporting all the legislative changes, which promote the reunification of families for the purpose of caring for disabled children; the possibility of reuniting family members (not only close relatives) in consideration of a disabled person within the migrant family needs to be extended. “Reasons of disability support” may be valid grounds for applying for and obtaining a legal residence permit for a family member from the home country to assist families with a disabled member, whether a minor or adult. The introduction of a provision in immigration legislation, which considers both disability and family reunification in combination, would be a great human and civil gesture, as well as an act of equity and justice (UNESCO, 2000).
49The scale of the migration phenomenon and its impact on the education, social and healthcare systems of the host countries undoubtedly gives rise to new organizational, social and cultural problems which, however, should not be perceived and interpreted “emotionally,” i.e. poorly supported by realistic knowledge of the actual situation. A perspective that views and defines disabled children of migrant families as a problem a priori also risks hiding the inherent potential of inclusion processes which can contribute to socio-relational and cognitive-rational progress and development at both individual and group level.
50The migration phenomenon can no longer be read as an emergency, but needs to be faced more structurally through a multi-dimensional approach which is closely linked to a common education project shared by all stakeholders in the lives of disabled children of migrant families. Indeed, as stated above, in the past few years education workers have perceived an increase in the number of disabled children of migrant families and currently the actual extent of this increase is being measured using structured and systemic methods.
51We consider it fundamental to remind the school world of its key role in fostering, facilitating and supporting inclusion processes. Schools are not only called on to respond with solutions for social transformations, but also to offer a new way of understanding the education and learning of the new generations.
52Indeed, an analysis of the data suggests the image of a welcoming school environment largely free of prejudice against migrant pupils, and that schools are the primary place for social inclusion as well as being an essential point of reference for migrant parents and their children. This leads to the need for training focusing on both areas, with specific and inclusive projects targeting not only access and welcoming (e.g. first meetings, communication, guidance, etc.), but also continuity and opportunities for success (for example, migrant children are found only in some senior schools).
53Through a research path encompassing both social networks (associations, etc.) and schools, we have described some useful and urgent elements to foster inclusion processes for the disabled children of migrant families. As can be seen, these elements run from support to the families to the need to develop networks of social ties and the clear identification of links between schools and (formal and informal) extra-scholastic services. The need to liaise more with the parents of disabled migrant children remains a priority, in order to offer clear and precise communication with the services, but also demonstrating the unique role of schools as a fundamental point of reference.
54Certainly our thoughts and educational commitments may appear very long-term and ambitious, and at this time in Italy some of our objectives unachievable, but we must in any case remember and work to achieve them. This is because significant adults (teachers, school workers, parents, etc.), have a responsibility towards all the new generations over educational care which goes beyond a professional guise and social role affecting relations and “proximities,” aiming to offer tangible hope: the offer of a life to be protected and developed.