Narratives for intercultural education: writers and rappers of the “second generation”

The presence in schools and in the public spaces of the second-generation of young people with migrant background goes already back to the end of the Sixties in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and to the end of the Nineties in Italy and implies the need to address new educational emergencies. Carrying experiences, styles and perspectives that are different than those of their parents and previous generations, attracted by the consumerism of Western culture but not always socially integrated, these boys and girls express the need to be recognized through a variety of behaviors and languages, including writing. This article will provide an overview of the phenomenon of the writers and rappers of “second generation” in Italy, focusing on the main issues of their productions and on the opportunity of reworking them in education, in order to enhance them both as a knowledge tool and as a dialogue proposal for the whole school community.