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Paper short abstract:

In Milan, Italy, a large proportion of children in a typical municipal preschool setting is likely to come from immigrant families. In this context the relationship between practices and ideologies offered by the state and those performed by the children's relatives challenges widespread views about childcare.

Paper long abstract:

In the city of Milan, in northern Italy, a high rate of children in a typical municipal preschool setting are likely to come from immigrant families.

Early childhood education and care settings are critical sites for immigrant families because for many immigrant children and their parents the negotiation of differences between their home culture and the culture of their new country begins with the child's enrolment in an education and care program.

In this paper I will discuss how the early childhood education and care systems are serving the children of recent immigrants and, at the other side, what parents expect for their children in preschool settings.

On the basis of ethnographic research in some early childhood education and care settings in Milan, I will discuss the relationship between practices and ideologies of childcare offered by the state (in Italy policy makers and education professionals are engaged in a debate about immigrant children and some of the key terms are "inclusion", "diversity as resource", "integration") and those performed by children relatives. School's programs, prescriptions and norms not always correspond to parents' expectations: religion, language, clothing, interaction between boys and girls, identity, divergent conceptions of the body, moral issues etc. appear as central matters of discussion. At stake is also the question about which duties should pertain to schools and which to family members; moreover, which family members? Immigrant families are usually composed by mother/father/children, but kinship relations, in some cases, appear to be multilocated, since little children are sent to grandparents, in their country of origin, and come back to Italy only to enroll in compulsory education programs.

Finally the focus will be laid on the contradictory connection between school practices which often reproduce stereotypes on the "other" and the ideas of parents on their children identity and education.