Situated learning, post-migrant youth and ludic spaces in diverse urban environments in Italy

Abstract

The aim of this article is to offer introductory theoretical arguments in order to research the role that urban ludic spaces play in post-migrants' everyday processes of situated learning. I discuss how situated learning processes are embedded in everyday webs of relationships, with special reference to spatial construction of intersectionality within power laden spaces affecting the way in which communities of practice develop in urban areas. I draw on results from a previous research carried out in diverse neighbourhoods of central and north-east Italian cities as an example of the way in which public playgrounds could be laden by power and could in this way affect the opportunities to share everyday practices and to build up a community of practices in non-formal and informal learning environments.

Keywords::

• migration
• urban environments
• situated learning
• youth
• ludic spaces

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Mityana Vaccaro, who gave fundamental help in preparing the final English version of this article.

Notes

^1. I refer, in particular, to research carried out at different times between the summer of 2007 and the spring of 2009. The focus of this research was on different public playgrounds located in urban environments in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Emilia, Lombardia and Lazio. The common characteristic identified was that in all of these public playgrounds, migrant, post-migrant, as well as native individuals, used them to play cricket in public. Most of the areas in question were located in Italian regions and districts strongly affected by flows of migrants from the countries of South-East Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri-Lanka and Bangladesh). In most of the aforesaid playgrounds the areas where cricket was played (public parks, squares, green spaces) were not designed or equipped for cricket, and the game was mainly practised by migrant and post-migrant youth, sometimes – but not often – also together with native players. The main aim of the research was to identify examples (and actual ways) of interaction or non-interaction between migrant, post-migrant and native individuals, both within and around the cricket playgrounds. Special reference was set on the connections between ‘inter-group’ interactions and informal processes of citizenship learning both for migrant, post-migrant and autochthonous youth. As mentioned, the results of the research have already been presented in Zoletto (2010, 2013, forthcoming [a]; Zoletto and Wildemeersch 2012). I would like to thank all the players, the teams and the associations I met during the research, and especially the Federazione Cricket Italiana, the Associazione ‘Genitori Scuoda Di Donato’ in Rome, and all the players and managers of cricket clubs of Paese (Treviso), Piazza Vittorio (Rome), Pordenone and Venice.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Davide Zoletto

Davide Zoletto is a researcher in General and Social Education at the University of Udine. His primary areas of research are educational theory, educational research in diverse learning environments, education and migrations, also with a focus on postcolonial and transnational perspectives. His most recent works include Pedagogia e studi culturali. La formazione tra critica postcoloniale e flussi culturali transnazionali (Pisa: ETS, 2011), and Dall'intercultura ai contesti eterogenei. Presupposti teorici e ambiti di ricerca pedagogica (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2012).