Generating places of integration. A network model toward the skills assessment of foreign students.

The study shows one or more models of network intervention, qualified as good practice, capable of generating places of integration between Italian and foreign students, with a specific reference to family engagement. We assessed the quality and sustainability of different partnership styles among the school, the public, the third sector and families, working on the assumption that this alliance is particularly appropriate in everyday life to achieve cultural integration between young Italians, foreigners and their families and to spread a network perspective able to successfully address the encounter among cultures. The research has reviewed over 246 projects considered particularly significant in relation to the duration, the variety of beneficiaries, activities, school grades involved. Then we studied 30 partnerships active in Lombardy Region, that has the largest number of foreign students in Italy, adding 3 cases out of Region and 3 projects conducted in other European countries (Feel, La Maleta intercultural, Rucksack). These projects are best suited to ensure a strengthening of the chance of integration both in terms of training, and of family, social and cultural development of the students. The fieldwork was conducted with qualitative techniques which involved participant observation, interviews and focus groups with operators and beneficiaries, analysis of school curricula and training. Over 30 leaders of the projects, about 100 teachers, mediators, volunteers, over 100 children of nationalities other than Italian and Italian and 50 families were interviewed. The study has identified specific guidelines to enable and support integrated networks between public or third sector and schools, capable of promoting and managing places of integration. Among the factors considered above there is the consistency and the structure of the network, the type and degree of collaboration between these actors, the type of governance put in place, the level of articulation of the relationship between the network and the socio cultural context in which it operates. Secondly we considered the project methodologies, the operation time, the extent of the catchment area, the level of the experience growth, the expansion of the partnerships. Also important were the methods of assessing the degree of social and cultural integration, educational and academic achievement in relation to skills, business integration, involvement of family background. To support these operational aspects we carried out a workshop, a public meeting, and circulated documents and multimedia materials on the dedicated website (www.diesseintercultura.com), on Youtube and Facebook.