The Identity Constructions in Arab-Islamic Educative Systems. Focus on Moroccans and Syrians In Italy, Germany, and Sweden (Joining virtually)

The present work deals with the impact of identity-building policies in the Mediterranean Arab countries’ educative systems on the experiences of Arab-speaking pupils who migrated to Europe. The analysis follows Mernissi’s categorisation (1992) and Nussbaum’s multifactorial analysis (2010) of educative systems, focusing on humanities, traditional values (Habermas 2018) and colonialism (Anderson 1991) as key factors in educative identity-building or Habitus transmission (Bordieu & Passeron 1990). Morocco and Syria are identified as two extremes for how they declined Arab and Islamic identities and are among the most significant Arab communities in Italy, Germany and Sweden, where the empirical research is carried out.

Sara Mazzei After her Bachelor’s degree in educational sciences (Unical 2012), Sara completed Arabic-Islamic studies at the Orientale University of Naples (2012-14) and completed her Master's degree in Education for Intercultural and Media Sciences at the University of Calabria in 2016. She has worked with migrants and refugees in linguistic support with non-EU children in elementary school (2014) and Asylum seekers’ extraordinary centres. She has worked on the Erasmus plus projects ENABLE: Self-learning for Arab-speaking refugee children (2017-19) and PARENTable- Communicating with parents of newly migrated children (2019-22). She is finishing her joint PhD at the University of Calabria and the University of Education of Schwäbisch Gmünd (2018-22).