1. Italian Culture By: Jennifer Hanners

2. Basic Facts Capital : Rome
Climate : Predominantly Mediterranean; Alpine in far North, dry in the south
Ethnic Make-up: Italian (includes small clusters of German, French, and Slovene-Italians in the North and Albanian-Italians and Greek Italians in the south)
Religions: Roman Catholic with mature Protestant and Jewish communities and a growing Muslim immigrant community.
Language: Italian is the official language of Italy and 93% of the population are native Italian speakers. Around 50% of the population speak a regional dialect.

3. Italian Family Values & Italian Style
The family is the anchor of the social structure and provides a stabilizing influence for it’s members both emotionally and financially. Italians love strong family ties and they honor all family obligations
In the North generally only the nuclear family lives together, while in the South the extended family often resides together in one house.
Appearance matters in Italy. The way you dress can indicate your social status, your family’s background and your educational level
Greetings are enthusiastic, yet formal.

4. Italian School System
The Italian school system is offered free to all children in Italy regardless of nationality. All children are required to attend school from age six to sixteen. Even the public nursery schools are free with reasonable sized classrooms and motivated teachers. The school system has a good reputation but tends to focus on rote memorization and obedience over creativity.
The students are given a basic education in Italian, English, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, History, Geography, Social Studies, Physical Education and Visual and Musical Arts.

5. Ideas for Addressing the Educational Needs of Students
Design a multicultural sensitive classroom. A multicultural classroom is one that features positive teacher expectations for all students, a learning environment that supports positive interracial contact and a curriculum that is multicultural in content with varied instruction.
Instructional design, activities, interaction patterns, behaviors and expectations must be fair and equitable for all.
Use positive tone during instructions
Assessing in a multicultural sensitive classroom must be reflective of the same diversity that curriculum, climate and instructional strategies show
It is important that assessments are done through a variety of techniques in both written and oral forms, performance and observations