Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to discuss some experimental experiences of teaching and dissemination of anthropology, in academic and non-academic contexts, aimed at an audience of nursery/pre-school teachers and future educators.

Paper long abstract:

Nurseries, kindergartens, schools and, in general, any educational context represent privileged places in which to apply anthropology, not only because in them one can experience daily contact with cultural diversity, but also because educational structures are bearers of specific cultures, made up of established habitus and rituals. This paper intends to reflect on two concrete experimental training experiences I carried out, on the one hand, with a group of nursery and kindergarten teachers in a non-academic context, and, on the other, with bachelor students in education.

In the first experience, anthropological knowledge was presented to teachers as a tool to promote reflexivity in their work through a combination of different methodologies: more “classical” lectures, analysis of documents used for educational planning, focus groups with teachers and parents, observations, and, finally, organisation of discussion moments. This path started online at the beginning, due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic, and then continued in presence.

The second experience I will briefly focus on concerns, instead, the university context, where I introduced some practical experiences during lectures where they were not initially planned. Students were invited to leave the classroom and explore the campus and/or neighbourhood, alone or in groups from a research question I had proposed to them. The outcomes of these observations were finally uploaded to an online platform, leaving the students free to use their preferred form of expression (photos, videos, field notes, etc.), and then we commented on them together.