ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the differentiating role of a vernacular cosmopolitanism in the intercultural education policy discourse in Italy, thus 'nationalizing' what is commonly thought of as a transnational, globalized approach. The intercultural discourse within Italy is brought into a historical web of discourses on European belonging, linguistic diversity, Catholicism, a 'culture of oppositions', and geographic cultural distinctions that makes interculturalism here something other than it would be elsewhere. The idea of mutual transformation is, in a way, managed by an accompanying discourse that subsumes intercultural exchange, and that is the need for harmonious convivenza. The nationalizing of intercultural education and the mapping of immigrant students within Italian school policy both rely upon a notion of who the Italian student is or ought to be because the project of schooling is inherently one of transformation, with the aim of educating and forming students into citizens.
