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This paper is based on a Horizon 2020 research project on the enhancement of migrant children's ability to contribute to the change of their conditions of integration in the education system in seven countries (Children Hybrid Integration: Learning Dialogue as a way of Upgrading Policies of Participation, CHILD‐UP; GA 822400). The paper draws on data collected in vocational schools, with adolescents aged 14–16, in Italy. It draws on transcribed interactions to analyse activities in school classrooms in which facilitators support migrant adolescent's agency in producing narratives of their personal cultural trajectories. The paper shows how facilitators and adolescents share the rights of telling the narratives, the gender differences that become visible in the adolescents' narratives, and the ways in which facilitation supports the hybrid integration of migrant adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst the link between young people's well‐being and the creative arts is strengthening, there is a lack of research which focuses on the roles that artists play to help teachers and parents engage young people in the creative arts. This paper explores the benefits of and barriers to artists working in education in six European countries (England, Iceland, Germany, Greece, Italy and Austria). Using the '5A's model of creativity' and a view of professional development taking place within 'landscapes of practice', the data were analysed in order to explain how creativity is operationalised in the different contexts. Our study highlights the need for policy at a national and transnational level to value the creative arts in order to help teachers cross boundaries and utilise the full potential of the creative arts in schools. Our study also highlights that further research is needed into how artists shape teaching and curriculum and how schools engage parents in the creative arts in order to build an evidence‐base relating to young people's positive mental health that can affect policy at these levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic has caused disruptive changes across different life experiences essential to children's growth and development, including early childcare services and schools, thus threatening precious opportunities for children in early childhood to learn. The pandemic has also undermined the collaborative and alliance relationship between childcare services and families which has been widely considered an important aspect of modern services. This paper presents and discusses results from a mixed‐method exploratory study with early childcare services for children between 0 and 6 years in Italy in 2021, involving both teachers and parents, to understand experiences, educational practices put in place in childcare services, feelings, resources and risks perceived by families and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents findings from explorative research conducted in Italy with seven 9‐ to 12‐year‐old children with non‐heterosexual parents. The aim was to find out how children describe their family structure, how they talk about their family with peers, and how they experience peers' attitudes towards non‐heterosexual families. Findings show that children have a flexible and inclusive representation of family and they disclose selectively with their peers who don't always consider homosexuality normal and homoparental families ‘real families’. The paper concludes by suggesting that institutional recognition for same‐sex parenting would support children in the everyday work of negotiating diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how some aspects of the cultural politics of childhood in Italy and Spain limit, allow or encourage the fuller realisation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, using the complementary voices of 49 participants, including policymakers, leaders of third sector organisations and families in vulnerable situations. Our research contributes to the advancement of the field by contextualising some of the facilitating and challenging factors regarding the enforcement of children's rights, divided into three different levels of analysis: structural factors, political factors and cultural factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the shift in emphasis from institutional to foster family care, in the south of Italy children in need are mainly looked after by residential services. These are required to provide family-style care and to place children on a short-term basis. Using data from research on a 100% sample of day units, residential services and children in care in the Calabria region, this article investigates the functioning of the system of care for vulnerable children at the sub-national level, describes looked-after children's characteristics and life conditions and questions the extent to which a real deinstitutionalisation process has occurred in this area. Finally, some deinstitutionalisation recommendations are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the theoretical framework, methodology and the main results of a comparative research on the promotion of children's social participation in Italy and Scotland, which was based on politicians’, managers’ and practitioners’ representations. Promotion of participation here is considered a form of social intervention in which adults construct and treat children as citizens entitled to be involved in decision-making processes, due to their competence in self-expression and making choices. The study revealed a coexistence of different images of childhood and social intervention, as well as some interesting differences and similarities between the two socio-cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]