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Il presente studio mira a evidenziare le pratiche di socializzazione narrativa che si sviluppano all’interno di interazioni conversazionali spontanee tra genitori e figli. L’analisi dei processi di argomentazione messi in atto durante i dialoghi a tavola tra membri di famiglie italiane mostra il ruolo della giustificazione come modalità sociale e linguistica nel processo di socializzazione discorsiva dei bambini. Le capacità argomentative di genitori e figli vengono dunque messe in evidenza attraverso lo sviluppo di strategie discorsive costruite nel qui e ora dell’interazione verbale a tavola. Si tratta di narrazioni che si situano all’interconnessione tra sviluppo individuale e socializzazione collettiva, occasioni in cui genitori e figli “fanno famiglia”. The present study aims at highlighting the practices of narrative socialization that emerge within everyday conversations between parents and children. The analysis of argumentative processes during dinnertime dialogs among Italian family members shows the role of the justification as linguistic and social modality in the process of children’s discursive socialization. The argumentative capacities of parents and children are highlighted through the development of discursive strategies that are created in the here-and-now of dinnertime verbal interactions. These are narratives located at the interconnection between the individual and collective socialization and occasions that allow parents and children “doing family.”

The increased and stable presence of immigrant children in preschools and in primary schools in Italy in the last twenty years, makes more and more important the study of the attitudes and behaviours in teachers, parents and children. As it is known, attitudes and behaviours can strongly influence school experience (relationships and achievements) of children from native as well as from immigrant families. Several international studies and surveys showed that children from immigrant families are more likely to drop out from school much before getting a diploma or a professional qualification (Anisef et al., 2010; Brunello & Rocco, 2012; De Witte et al., 2013). The reason for it can be found in their socio-demographic conditions, their insufficient knowledge of the host country language and the inadequacy of educational policies for immigrants. Furthermore, the co-existence in the same school of immigrant children and autochthone children creating a constant intercultural and interethnic contact puts forward the need to handle prejudice development, in view of the social integration of the immigrant children. In this paper we present a study exploring the relationship between personality, educational style and prejudice of parents in native and in immigrant families regarding immigrant children’s social integration. Results show important relations among these parents’ characteristics, together with differences between native and immigrant families. These findings could provide a contribution in implementing adequate intervention programmes supporting the school integration of immigrant children.

In this article, using a multidimensional methodology, we explored the role of materiality in the everyday lives of eight Italian families. Focusing on spaces and objects, we analyzed how people "use" material frames and boundaries in expanding their individual and collective experiences at home. We employed a composite design including different sources of data: audio and videotaped home tours, visual ethnographic notes and photos, observations of everyday family activities, home-mapping and observational tracking of actions at regular intervals. We used discourse and conversation analysis to investigate family members' talk-in-interaction concerning materiality. The findings show that spaces and objects are expansions of participants' everyday activities: they are presented as flexible in their use, multifunctional and affectively connoted. We also present implications for the methodological design and its potential for capturing how family doings create both a sense of life and the affordances of everyday experiences at home.