Moroccan immigrant mothers’ experiences of Italian preschool institutions. A mixed-method study

ABSTRACT

Being an immigrant mother demands both the redefinition of one’s identity as a woman and as a mother and a ‘double cultural mediation’ in children’s upbringing, between the culture of origin and that of the host country. Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) are key settings to supporting the wellbeing and the integration of immigrants. This contribution presents research conducted in Italy within the international ISOTIS project (www.isotis.org). Drawing on 114 structured interviews and 12 narrative-biographical interviews, this paper analyses how Moroccan mothers described their relationship with the ECEC system, teachers, and other parents. While survey data indicated that mothers who perceived discrimination were likely to participate less, the qualitative interviews showed that the ECEC settings were generally supportive and non-discriminatory. The ECEC services’ support resulted to be a turning point in the educational and social path of children and mothers themselves. The relationship with the teacher was depicted mostly as positive and meaningful, though the Italian parents’ network seemed harder to join, unveiling a segmented experience of social inclusion and exclusion between in and out of the school context. The findings may contribute to identifying factors facilitating or hindering immigrant parents’ full inclusion and participation in the community life.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigration and motherhood
• parent-school relationship and communication
• educational inequalities
• mixed-methods
• narrative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 www.isotis.org

2 This name and the other mothers’ names are pseudonyms, not real names.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giulia Pastori

Giulia Pastori is Associate Professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, where she obtained her PhD in 2008 in Communication and Education Sciences and teaches Pedagogy and Research Methods in Education. Her national and international research deals with ECEC and school quality and improvement; multiculturality, multilingualism, curriculum in ECEC services and school; qualitative and quantitative research methods; comparative cross-cultural research; and children’s voice research. In the last ten years she has participated and has coordinated several national and International research projects. Recently, she was scientific supervisor and coordinator of the Italian research group for the European project Inclusive Education and Social Support to Tackle Inequalities in Society (www.isotis.org).

Alessandra Mussi

Alessandra Mussi holds a Ph.D. student in Education and Communication Sciences (University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy). After a master degree in Cultural Anthropology and a field research experience in Egypt, her research interests are about: intercultural pedagogy, qualitative research and ethnography in educational contexts, migrant parenthood, Arab communities, gender issues and intercultural citizenship. She collaborates with “Riccardo Massa” Department of Human Sciences and Education, at University of Milano-Bicocca within national and international research projects.

Irene Capelli

Irene Capelli holds a PhD in Social Anthropology (University of Torino – 2014). She graduated in Medical Anthropology (Msc Brunel University London) and in Social and Cultural Anthropology (MA University of Bologna). Her fields of research include reproduction, parenting and migration, transnational migration in North Africa and Southern Europe (particularly Morocco and Italy), health and educational inequalities. Since 2007 she has conducted extensive ethnographic research in different parts of Morocco and Italy in multiple institutional and non-institutional contexts. She also works as a professional anthropologist and consultant.

Ryanne J. R. M. Francot

Ryanne Francot started her PhD at the department of Development and Education in Diverse Societies of Utrecht University in 2017. She graduated Cum Laude from the Research Master Educational Sciences at Utrecht University (2015). Her main research interests concern educational partnerships between parents and (pre)schools in multicultural societies, and the home learning and language environment of multilingual families. She was involved in the ISOTIS project, funded by the EU (2016–2019), and is currently involved in several national projects focusing on early education in the Netherlands.