Linguistic Contact in Migratory Contexts: Plurilingual Education in Genoa

The investigations carried out since 2013 and completed in 2015, focused attention on the Genovese educational scenario marked by a significant presence of Spanish-speaking students as a result of the massive immigration of contingents from Latin America. This article mainly deals with the collaboration between University and schools that, at that time, involved some activities developed by a Primary school classes with an intercultural curriculum. In this classe new approaches in the field of linguistic education were experimented. The purpose of these activities was to foster intercultural and plurilingual competence that if acquired in early childhood can contribute to improve children’s cognitive and socio-emotional development and well-being as well as to mitigate social inequality favoring better overall results from allophone students.