This article aims at reflecting upon the importance of promoting inclusive education paradigms to foster democratic processes in contexts affected by protracted conflict. When questioning the meaning of borders, one might consider how a border has the potential to produce alterity from equity, otherness from belonging, difference from similarity. With reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, physical borders act as an architecture of restricting confinements that increase social injustice and alter the Palestinian community’s everyday life, posing critical barriers to the achievement of inclusion in educational contexts within the areas of East Jerusalem and West Bank (Taddei & Pacetti, 2018). The dynamics of occupying powers and the limitations of freedoms draw concerns towards the possible creation of a democratic school. Indeed, conflict-affected areas see a constant disruption of teaching and learning opportunities that often spirals into systematic violence, turning the oppressed into oppressor and propagating exclusion (Shah et al., 2020; Taddei, 2010). In these challenging scenarios, education represents a viable trajectory to transcend physical and cultural borders, acting as a driver for social change that can promote equality, civic participation, and democracy (Taddei, 2021; INEE, 2018; Taddei, 2010). Accordingly, University of Macerata worked in a joint effort with Al-Quds University (Palestine), with the aim of promoting new pedagogical strategies to foster inclusion and democracy within conflict-affected contexts. An intercultural scientific dialogue was initiated between the two institutions to co-design educational pathways that can foster the formation of teachers and students according to inclusive education paradigms. By interviewing Al-Quds University Professors and involving them in the definition and development of a training program structured in modules for future teachers, the fundamentals of inclusion were adapted in light of the Palestinian context in a shared pedagogical action. As a result, the promotion of democratic participation processes in education can offer new frameworks for Palestinian schools, in the co-creation of a sustainable, contextualized and valuable perspective for education. Such trajectories appear to be relevant reflections when considering the dynamic relationship between borders of different nature and substantive equality, especially with reference to inclusive education. This approach aligns with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (2006), emphasizing how the right to education must be safeguarded and ensured for all people throughout the creation of an inclusive education system at all levels. In this sense, an inclusive school aims at crossing and reducing the physical and conceptual barriers that impede students’ full participation, welcoming their diversity as a unique resource for the learning environment. Increasing accessibility, ensuring individualization and personalisation processes, as well as fostering empowerment are strategies that can be pursued to this end (UNESCO, 2020). In the challenging interstices between physical constraints and conceptual thresholds, this paper illustrates a co-design experience aimed at the development of inclusive educational frameworks within the Palestinian context. In this sense, this contribution will discuss the concept of an inclusive school to go beyond physical, conceptual, and intercultural borders, promoting a democratic society for future generations.

The aim of the intervention is to examine the influence of gender-related stereotypes on studies of gender brain differences. After introducing three concepts considered to underlie current gender stereotypes, such as androcentrism (Perkins ,1911), gender polarisation (Bem, 1993) and biological essentialism, the phenomenon of 'neurosexism' (Fine, 2013), i.e. the tendency to legitimise preconceived ideas about inherent gender differences through neuroscientific research, will be presented. The reciprocal conditioning between research bias due to cultural stereotypes and the impact of scientific research in their further confirmation is thus found. Through the critical review of the literature in the field by researchers Cordelia Fine and Gina Rippon, some features will be highlighted in the structuring of the research question and the analysis of the results that could be the result of such conditioning and thus of research bias (Fine 2010; Rippon, Fine 2014; Fine 2017; Rippon 2019). In the review, the following will emerge: the tendency to rely on gender stereotypes in formulating research hypotheses and drawing inferences; pervasive confusion related to the concept of gender, mostly treated as a natural phenomenon rather than a social construct; the frequent and fallacious overlap between biological sex and gender; the persistence of the essentialist view in research hypotheses that biological sex incisively determines the individual's brain development; the influence of evolutionary theories on gender roles, often considered natural rather than cultural; the common classification of the sample into groups divided according to biological sex (group of XY individuals, group of XX individuals), with the aim of investigating distinct 'female' and 'male' profiles that can be considered as opposite extremes of a continuum; conclusions related to behavioural differences on numerically small samples. In opposition, it is supported a revision based on the notion that gender is multifactorial, rather than two-dimensional, and that structural and functional brain differences cannot be clearly differentiated according to the sex of the individual. Specifically, it is referred to four possible guiding principles suggested in the research for gender-related brain differences: the principle of overlap, contingency, mosaicism, and entanglement (Rippon, Fine 2014).

Access to both labour market and tertiary education in Italy still appears to differ significantly on the basis of gender, territorial context, and social class of belonging therefore determined by the different social, economic and relationship capitals with which individuals are endowed. For young people with a migrant background, these issues are amplified and also exacerbated by the great uncertainty associated with turning eighteen years old and regarding their residence status. School-to-work, as well as school-to-university transition, is strongly impacted by the type of high school being undertaken and for young people with a migrant background, this choice is often associated with the role of the migrant generation. In addition, young people's aspirations are associated with family expectations, social relations, and perceptions of the benefits that studying can bring that differ by migrants' cultural level, which in turn is the result of orientation actions and aspirations that differ as illustrated in Buonomo, Orientale Caputo Gabrielli, Gargiulo (2024). These circumstances significantly affect the educational and/or employment success of young people.

Among the European countries, in Italy the school-to-work transition process is the longest: on average it takes one year from obtaining a degree to entering the labour market with a first job of at least three months (Righi, Sciulli, 2008; Pastore et al., 2020). In light of the recent recessionary cycles, it is not only the economic circumstances that burden the transitions but even the persisting gap between the education and production systems.

Most of the research conducted on the integration of young people with migrant backgrounds has highlighted the persistence of ethnic disadvantages in accessing the labour market (Piton, Rycx, 2020), and of the relevance in integration pathways of social origin and geographical origin. (Silberman, Fournier, 1999).

Studies conducted so far in Italy have also found that country of origin, legal status, gender, as well as territorial context significantly influence the level of labour market participation of immigrant descendants (Zanfrini, 2006; Pozzi 2009; Greco 2010, Strozza et al. 2015).

This paper aims to contribute to this debate, starting with the results of a research being conducted in a number of high schools in Campania (Italy), with a remarkable presence of students/graduates with a migrant background.

Through semi-structured interviews administered to both first and second-generation high school students and graduates, and their teachers, we investigate the role played by family and other significant adults and the social network. Moreover, the contribution of teachers and the school institution on those choices is examined, especially in light of the introduction of the two new figures of “tutor teacher” and “guidance teacher” (DM No. 63 of April 5, 2023).

Our purpose is to study to what extent the migratory background affects the prospects of the “descendants of immigrants”, starting from the difficulties encountered during their school career, the coherence of the choice made at the time of enrolment with expectations and future projects, also investigating the possibility of choosing whether to continue with tertiary education (and which one) or enter the job market.

The dropout rate in Italy is very high due to endogenous and exogenous causes (Istat 2021). As part of a project promoted by the Regional School Office of Lombardy involving Prison Institutions and Universities on the topic of Education to Legality ("Education to Legality between schools and the services of penal and precautionary enforcement limiting freedom," 2022-2023), this research analyses how, through the involvement of different institutions, a school approach based on active and innovative methodologies, the formation of peer groups and the development of joint study, it is possible to reactivate and revive the sense and pleasure of studying.

A multidisciplinary team composed of school teachers working outside and inside the prison, justice workers and researchers from the University, following the participatory mode of Research Action, developed a pilot project involving two classes of adult foreign students in majority returned to education, including one class of detained students. The two classes worked, jointly and separately, from April to June 2023.

We will explore the strengths and critical issues that emerged from the educational-didactic research project. In particular, empirical research conducted in the field through participatory classroom observations and focus groups, highlighted: 1) the possibility and value of co-design between different institutions; 2) students' perception of the transformative power of learning (Mezirow 1991); 3) students' self-perception of the value of teamwork (Wenger 1998, 2000; Mead 1934); 4) the strong involvement of students through active and participatory methodologies and through themes related to autobiography and identity, and life stories (Dewey, 1949, 1984; Mortari 2016); 5) the desire expressed by both classes for more durable paths; 6) the need for specific training of teachers, in particular on the forms of active involvement of students, also to mutually restore the sense of the process that took place in the two classes.