Submerged Pedagogies: Informal Educational Networks and Cultural Resistance in the Little Italies

This article examines the role of Italian American communities in the Little Italies between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as active protagonists in informal educational processes and cultural resistance. In contrast to traditional assimilationist interpretations that cast these enclaves as passive ghettos, the study shows how Italian immigrants developed forms of pedagogical agency in response to discrimination and the racialization they experienced. Drawing on a multidisciplinary theoretical framework, it foregrounds the parallel educational systems that emerged at the time: from national parish schools — supported by the Catholic Church to mediate between Italian identity and integration — to associational networks, popular theatre, the ethnic press, and domestic knowledge and practices transmitted predominantly by women. These “submerged pedagogies” functioned as laboratories of cultural resilience, fostering literacy, community cohesion, and the formation of hybrid Italian American identities. The study concludes by proposing new avenues for further research on informal education, institutional bilingualism, and the gendered contribution to historical migrations.