Lifelong Education in Diverse Communities. Reading Ettore Gelpi and Leonardo Zanier on Complex Environments ‘in Transition’

The chapter starts by focusing on some of the emerging characteristics within socioculturally diverse environments, particularly highlighting the overall complexity that researchers and educators have to deal with within such contexts. It then proceeds to present some of the key educational concepts in Ettore Gelpi’s analysis of diverse urban environments and of the relations between culture(s) and lifelong education. The paper suggests that Gelpi’s idea of culture is close to Williams’ seminal idea of “culture as a whole way of life” and that, within the Gelpian perspective, living and vital cultural practices play a relevant role in lifelong education in diverse environments. At the same time, the chapter suggests that, in a Gelpian view, researchers and educators working in diverse communities should change the way they usually consider migration diversity. They should try to not consider migrants as merely beneficiaries of educational interventions, but as an active cultural and educational reference who make a full contribution to lifelong education within complex environments "in transition". To conclude, the paper presents Gelpi’s great regard for the educational activity of the Italian educator, trade unionist and poet Leonardo Zanier and in particular his work on the issue of migrants’ linguistic education.