In modern, globalized societies, marked by transnational migrations (Castles, 2002) and "superdiversity" (Vertovec, 2007), multiculturalist, assimilationist and differential exclusion policies contribute to strengthening inequalities between and within nations, proposing a hierarchical categorization of knowledge and a declassification of experiences and epistemologies that do not respond to the dominant Western model (Mignolo, 2000). Colonial relations of domination guide teaching contents and practices in university classrooms and schools (hooks, 1994; Walsh, 2009; Borghi, 2020). The “coloniality of minds” (Ngũgĩ, 1986) and the “coloniality of knowledge” (Lugones, 2008, 2011) in relation to the “coloniality of being” and power (Quijano, 2000; Mignolo, 2013), cause the cultural appropriation or concealment of a given culture for the imposition of "universal knowledge", which subjugates and removes knowledge, philosophies and thoughts of the Global South (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018). Starting from a series of creative workshops and experience gained in the context of the relationship with students of the Intercultural Pedagogy in Primary Education Sciences degree course, the contribution proposes practices and methodologies of conscientization and dialogue (Freire, 1970), of co-reflection and horizontal production of knowledge to stimulate alternative, anti-racist and intercultural teaching (Jewell, 2020) and imagine a future decolonial school together with the teachers who will animate it. The importance of using an intercultural language in schools and institutes will be discussed, starting with a reflection on meta-cognition as a tool for deconstruction and decolonization.

Decolonizing childhoods means questioning North-centric notion of “global child” as a univocal trajectory to which every nation should strive, while Southern childhoods are depicted as “other”, non-modern (Rabello de Castro, 2020). Considering African contexts, it's necessary to look beyond a “deficit” model of childhood (Abebe & Ofosu-Kusi, 2016), which also influences the (self)representation of Afro-descendant minors (Fainelli, 2025).

Worldwide, children experience intercultural contact side by side, specifically in contemporary metropolises, where postcolonial dynamics produce social ghettoization as well as new cultural crossings (Burgio, 2022). It's thus fundamental to challenge the colonial power imbalance that affects children from different circumstances (Liebel, 2023). Hence, education is essential to counter colonial narrations of otherness and structural inequalities.

This study examines the experiences of four educational centers across Italy and Kenya that use art as an emancipatory opportunity to empower personal identities and challenge socio-spatial inequalities. Semi-structured interviews and observations revealed multiple strategies to support minors living in urban marginal areas. The need for contextualized educational interventions recalls the necessity of rejecting universalized Eurocentric childhood; however, transversal trajectories were found to overcome marginalization through arts: educate for beauty; cultivate awareness and personal talents in the community; step out of poverty and illegality through professionalization paths; promote interactions with “the others”.

Subverting marginalization trajectories by using art as a pedagogical experience of liberation and self-determination (Freire, 1968) contributes to disarticulating colonial narratives of childhoods and promoting educational opportunities for all children – included Afro-descendants – to “be more” (Ibidem) without being fixed in stereotyped categories.

In the town of Castelfidardo, in the Marche region of Italy, a collection of traditional African art from Zambia is preserved. These objects are not directly linked to the diaspora of a people, they represent a fragment of African culture that has been removed from its original context and relocated in Italy. The collection, consisting of approximately sixty artifacts, arrived in Italy in the second half of the 20th century following the intent of Monsignor Francesco Mazzieri, a Franciscan missionary active in Zambia since 1931. The museum housing the collection is dedicated to him. The analysis of the collection has identified some thematic categories: art produced for the tourist market, ivory carving, the representation of gender roles in society, Christian iconographies, and traditional artistic expressions. The research has focused particularly on the latter artifacts, identifying two power statues belonging to the Songye people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The core of this investigation goes beyond a simple stylistic and iconographic analysis of the objects and questions about the real purpose of their musealization. Does the creation of this exhibition space come from a genuine desire to enhance and understand African art and culture, or does it rather serve to glorify missionary work and the expansion of Christianity in Africa?