Oltre l’inclusione. Educare alla pluralità attraverso il confine. Sperimentazioni cooperative tra antropologia e educazione

How can conceptual and methodological approaches in anthropology contribute to the study of educational processes and particularly to develop a new education project for interculturality in schools? The article explores how the topic of borders – as both an object of study of anthropology and a metaphor for describing some distinctive characteristics of anthropological thinking – can be regarded as a useful tool to respond to this question. Specifically, the paper has two objectives. The first is to show how anthropology offers us valuable tools to (re)think educational practices in contemporary multicultural contexts through its reflection on the border, mobility, identity, and difference nexus. Such a reflection encourages rethinking intercultural education as educating for pluralism fostering relations among diversities, thereby overcoming an idea of intercultural education merely aimed to include cultural diversity ‘in the singular’, only referred to ‘foreign’ students. The second is to explore the potential of a focus on educational processes to advance the anthropological theoretical and empirical understanding of borders, at the same time showing schools as a prominent ‘field’ for all anthropologists and not only for those interested in education. To meet these objectives, we will refer to some educational workshop activities on the topic of borders and border crossings that – conceived during an action-research in the Italian/Tunisian borderland – are proposed as a tool for cooperative design (involving researchers, teachers, and educators) of practical actions for intercultural education in schools and in other educational contexts, as well as in training for adults and particularly for teachers.