'Christmas is Cancelled': Controversy in Italian Schools (and Press)

Marco Parma, President of a public school in an immigrant neighbourhood in the southern hinterland of Milan, Italy, was accused in late-November 2015 of 'cancelling Christmas' in the name of inclusivity towards non-Catholic school pupils. Partially misguided and partially unfounded, these allegations became object of extensive media coverage and political controversy over Italian cultural identity and the role of public schools in it. Through critical discourse analysis and visual analysis, this paper scrutinizes a small corpus of newspaper articles from Il Corriere della Sera (Italy's most circulated newspaper) covering the Rozzano scandal and the related images. Findings are as follows. Firstly, the episode is covered in terms of a clash of civilizations between an Italian Catholic 'self' and an immigrant 'other'. Secondly, this 'other' is constructed as 'Muslim'. Thirdly, Muslim voices are largely under-represented. When 'Muslims' get to speak for themselves, the voices included are usually those of private individuals (not community representatives), often in familial environments rather than public fora.