The authors present a case study on the development and evaluation of teaching materials for teaching Slovene in schools with Slovene as language of instruction and in the sloveneitalian bilingual ...school in Italy, as developed in the INTERREG project EDUKA2. The authors discuss possible developmental perspectives in the field of minority language teaching and preparation of teaching materials. The authors note that modern technology offers some answers to the challenges of distributing and sharing teaching materials among school and kindergarten teachers, and that the Slovenian community in Italy could take advantage of it, and conclude that the role of teachers and educators is still essential in upgrading and adapting teaching materials.
The study analyzes the spatial fragmentation in the Slovenian settlement area in Italy and highlights assimilation and demographic processes that exert influence on the Slovenian-speaking minority. ...The work builds on the current status of research and is based on official data, their evaluation through qualitative investigations as well as on further results of own research on site. The Slovenian-language population in Friuli Venezia Giulia is currently estimated at about 46,000 people. The main settlement area is the eastern border zone of this region, which is characterized by different cultural and regional identities. While the Slovenian-speaking population of Friuli (Val Canale and Slavia) focuses more on its cultural and regional distinctions, the majority of the Slovenian-language group in Venezia Giulia considers itself a “national minority.” Thus, the overall assessment of the possible future of the Slovenian-language group varies thus from region to region.
The 2022 parliamentary elections in Hungary offered for the third time an opportunity for national minorities to elect their representative by casting a preferential vote for their Member of ...Parliament. However, the failure of the list of representatives of the most numerous ethnic group, the Roma, and the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights concerning the violation of multiple elements of the electoral system underscored the need for a comprehensive assessment of hitherto experience and for a reform of the preferential minority mandate and the institution of advocacy. This study aims to contribute to this process by examining the institutional framework and the electoral results, with a particular focus on the analysis of minority-related aspects of the last parliamentary elections and the situation of the Slovene national minority.
During the second quarantine period in Italy (Oct. ‘20–June ‘21), students once again faced a remote teaching and learning format. Much research has been conducted on students’ perceptions during the ...first pandemic period; however, far less is known about the second period, especially in the case of students within the Slovene minority in Italy. We aimed to investigate (1) students’ satisfaction with their teachers’ teaching methods in remote learning and in-class teaching formats, (2) students’ perceptions regarding the main differences between in-class and online mathematics lessons, and (3) whether students’ grades in mathematics changed as a result of the pandemic. The findings showed that students’ grades during the quarantine period increased compared to their grades before the pandemic. However, students were more satisfied with their teachers’ in-class teaching methods and believed that in-class teaching was more efficient. They were also more motivated and concentrated at school than online.
After the 1954 Memorandum of Understanding of London, Italy and Yugoslavia
settled their border dispute by partitioning what was formerly the Free
Territory of Trieste. Furthermore, they also agreed ...to extend to each
other?s national minorities living in the two zones of the former Free
Territory the protection measures established by the Special Statute, an
annex to the Memorandum. Neither of the two countries fully complied with
the Special Statute but wanted it to be implemented in the Zone administered
by the other side. Italy wanted to negotiate all further implementations and
new concessions on the basis of reciprocity, the main rationale for the
protection measures stipulated in the Special Statute. In contrast,
Yugoslavia wanted Italy to agree to the unilateral implementation of the
Special Statute in Trieste and to other concessions. This led to a stalemate
in the negotiations and consequently to the poor enforcement of the Special
Statute, which caused rising tensions on the local level, even though, in
the meantime, the overall diplomatic relations between the two countries
continued to improve. Yugoslavia?s increasing requests for unilateral
implementation of the Special Statute and the Yugoslav-funded Slovene
organisations in Italy resulted in a series of major anti-Yugoslav and
anti-Slovene demonstrations in Trieste. After these riots and the ensuing
debate on the minority issue, the need to rely on reciprocity also became
evident to the Yugoslav diplomacy. Yugoslavia, therefore, dropped its old
policy and started to improve the treatment of its Italian minority and
agreed to negotiate based on the principle of reciprocity. This led to quick
benefits for both minorities, and a new path that led Italy and Yugoslavia
to sign new agreements on their mutual minorities, going even beyond the
Special Statute.
The article presents the situation of members of the Slovene community in Croatia, focusing on selected aspects of their socioeconomic participation (inclusion) in Croatian society. This topic has ...not been thoroughly studied yet, firstly due to the low interest of researchers in the position and activities of members of the Slovene community in Croatia, and secondly due to a continuous lack of data on the socioeconomic participation of members of not only the Slovene community but of all minorities in Croatia in general. Based on the analysis of data mainly collected from Croatian official reports, the situation of members of the Slovene minority in Croatia is presented mainly in relation to the exercise of their rights to education and employment.
Italy was the first country of the Western world to experience the outburst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and slowing it down required a swift and sizable adaptation of all aspects of life in Italy. ...Based on a preliminary qualitative study and relying on existing primary and secondary data sources, the author explores the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Slovene community in Italy. Although the community shared the same fate as the rest of Italy’s population in terms of restrictive measures and limitations to human rights, the author argues that some of the measures had a different, sometimes disproportionate and harmful effect on the community. Similarly, the changes in modus vivendi et operandi of the minority and its members that appeared as a side-effect of the pandemic may alter significantly the functioning of the minority in the future, and wider integration processes in the cross-border region may be slowed down or even reversed.
Why is memory politics such a contested field? Why is it so hard to change narratives, overcome enemy images, and draw "objective" pictures of the past? In what way can works of art break the ice and ...promote "dangerous memories" (Bekerman/Zembylas 2012, 22)? How can works of art, and especially literature, use their aesthetic potential to help achieve attitude changes?
In this paper, I examine these questions through the lens of literary criticism. I focus on Maja Haderlap's novel Angel of Oblivion in order to illustrate several typical features of (not just) Austria's memory politics after World War II: on the one hand, Austria's claim as Hitler's first victim; the depreciation of the (Slovenian) anti-fascist partisans; the relativization of Nazi crimes by pointing at the (real or fictional) crimes of Yugoslav communists, and as a consequence the denial of the minority rights of Carinthian (and Styrian) Slovenians. And on the other hand, the struggle for a democratic and honest memory culture - not only within Austria's borders but beyond, in the entire "Alps-Adriatic" region. Haderlap's book is itself a wonderful example of the success of this ongoing endeavour.
Background
We examined core assets of collective identity for enhanced psychological well-being among hardly investigated Slovene ethnic minority and Italian majority youth in Italy. The Slovene ...minority is an autochthonous minority living in Italy since the 6th century.
Participants and procedure
We tested a model based on the notion that collective identity derives from familial, ethnic and religious identities as important sources of identification for youth in line with prior work on the salience and relations among these sources. Participants were 114 Slovene and 144 Italian adolescents (aged 14 to 18 years old) living in the North-East of Italy. They filled in standardized measures on ethnic, national, familial and religious identity, the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Positive Affective Schedule.
Results
Path models showed that stronger collective identity was related to higher scores of perceived psychological well-being. Interestingly, for the Slovene minority youth, ethnic Slovenian identity was unrelated to collective identity. Overall, among all youth, all identity components loaded into a single factor of collective identity, confirming previous studies with bicultural minority youth.
Conclusions
The findings shed light on the path linking multiple aspects of collective identities together to adolescents’ well-being and are useful in pragmatic terms for improving and facilitating assets of individual and social/collective well-being and functioning of youth.
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