Transforming schools through teacher-child relationship

Nowadays one of the greatest educational challenges European school has to face is to ensure to foreign pupils the same educational opportunities granted to native peers. This is an essential first step to achieve a real, tangible social inclusion of these children and promote the richness they bring along with their cultural identities and their peculiar histories. Italian school has moved just few steps in this direction, as the emerging issue concerning with the academic success of foreign students dramatically suggests. In fact, these children appear more vulnerable than native peers and encounter more failures in their educational path. Recent studies have pointed out the key role that relationship between teacher and foreign pupils can play in preserving these children from negative outcomes. According to these evidences, in order to support the relationship and improve its protective effect, the researchers have to focus their attention on the representations that teachers have of these students and their learning difficulties. However, so far only few researches have investigated this subject. Therefore this paper aims to examine the teachers’ peculiar point of view through the analysis of a case study conducted in a primary school in the province of Como, in the North of Italy. This qualitative research contributes to increase our knowledge about this valuable, although disregarded subject. It also provides school educators and psychologists with useful advices that can guide their action in support of teacher-child relationship.