Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

of geography in the process of integration, and especially the role of the school. Anumber of contributions dealt with themes such as: migratory movements betweendiversity and mutual acceptance, ethnic conflict and multiculturalism, immigrationand religious pluralism, problems of female immigrants, illegal immigration andcriminality, interculture and new didactics of geography, and intercultural educationin secondary schools and universities (Brusa, 1997).The appointment in Macerata was repeated two years later in 1998: “Immigrationand multiculture in Italy today: citizenship and exclusion, the Adriatic frontierand other places of immigration – society and the school”. In this case too interculturalquestions were dealt with, such as the geography of citizenship and exclusion,compared female migratory experiences, immigration and health, immigrationbetween integration and diffidence, intercultural education and scholastic curricula,geography and multicultural training (Brusa, 1999).In Aquila, still in 1998, a meeting took place on the theme “Multiculture: conflictand living side by side in the multiethnic society”, in which the problems linked tomulticulturalism and identity, immigration and exclusion, racism and xenophobiawere considered (Di Michele, Gaffuri and Nacci, 2002). On the threshold of the newmillennium, therefore, almost all the geographic research on immigration was linkedto the themes of multiculturalism and integration. An international conference washeld in 2001, organised in memory of Giorgio Valussi by the University of Udine andTrieste, during which Italian and foreign scholars confronted each other on the newmigration issues in Europe and Italy, with study cases dedicated to single regionalrealities (Bellencin Meneghel, Lombardi, ed., 2002).A few months after the Friuli conference, in June 2001, a meeting was organised inVercelli on the theme of “Processes of globalisation of the economy and geographicmobility”, that returned to examining the problem of integration and the exclusionof immigrants in social, cultural, working and school life in Italy (Brusa, 2002). InTrieste, in March 2002, a new conference was held on: “Geographic mobility in Italy:characteristics and trends, regional differences and territorial distribution processesin the new multicultural society”. During this event it was possible to examine thefirst results of the same-named research programme, co-financed by the Ministry ofthe University and Research, and coordinated by Pio Nodari. Among the communicationspresented, an increasingly growing interest emerged in investigating into theimmigration of foreign women in Italy and the problems connected to their socialand employment integration.Recent DevelopmentsThe aim of the meeting held in Fano (The Marches), in March 2003, entitled “Interculture,Geography, Training” was to promote a debate among institutions (universities,schools, public bodies, voluntary associations), in order to unite the efforts andinitiatives in support of intercultural dialogue. Other objectives were to reaffirm thecentrality of geography in the processes of intercultural integration and insist on theconnecting role that our discipline can play with respect to other scholars equallyinterested in the problem of immigration. The conference, organised by the Univer-260