Mapping pupils and teachers attitudes towards cultural diversity in secondary schools

The poster presents the initial steps concerning a research project aiming at identifying links between secondary schools teachers and pupils attitudes and the degree of social integration characterising the Veneto and the Emilia Romagna neighbouring Regions. The study pays attention to compare different school environments and to the interaction between the school team and the phenomena of “secondary differences”, the processes of collective identity-building within contexts of marginalisation or discrimination, which generate phenomena of “cultural inversion” (Ogbu, 1987, p. 323), meant as the tendency of minority groups to consider certain meanings, symbols and events of the predominant culture as inadequate to their own group's members. Both qualitative and quantitative data are analysed in order to draw a recognisable typology of teachers and pupils attitudes towards cultural diversity in schools and to explore how case studies and critical incidents could be used in developing teacher training.