The Language of Cinema Fosters the Development of Soft Skills for Inclusion and Interdisciplinary Learning

Abstract

This chapter presents research on an Italian education project implemented with immigrant students attending C.P.I.A. courses in Bergamo (Centro Provinciale Istruzione Adulti – Provincial Adult Education Center). This contribution proposes an educational experience characterized by an interactive approach among different disciplines. The title of the project was Cinema as a resource for enhancing interdisciplinary teaching and learning by harnessing knowledge and skills from across different subject areas: from Italian language to geography and history, and from science and maths to the visual arts. Over the four years of the project, film was used in multiple ways as a tool/resource for teaching-learning focused on developing school inclusion. The overall aims of the project were to incorporate the cinema into the construction of an interdisciplinary teaching/learning path, while seeking to integrate theory and praxis within a collaborative professional development and research model. The project activities were designed in keeping with EU recommendations on core competences for ongoing learning. From 2006 to 2018, the European Parliament and Council approved a set of “Recommendations on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning,” that is to say, knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will help learners find personal fulfilment and, later in life, find work and take part in society. The project was also informed by recent Italian legislation encouraging the use of cinema in education, particularly Law 14 November 2016, No. 220, containing “Discipline of Cinema and Audiovisual” and the Law 13 July 2015, No. 107, the school reform framework “La BuonaScuola.”