First, some reference context: Italian is a gender-based language which linguistically contains only two genders, male and female, and every word, whether referred to a person, an animal, or an object, is classified in this binary system male/female noun.
As a linguistical practice, when you a have a mix of male and female elements like 'ragazzi' (boys) and 'ragazze' (girls), you refer to the group by using the masculine plural 'ragazzi'.
