This contribution develops reflections that emerged during the research project "Gender Studies and Diversity Management for Inclusive Public Administrations," conducted within the Gender Studies Ph.D. program at the University of Bari. The research focuses on the intersection between disability and migratory background, with a specific emphasis on countering stereotypes and the role of educational contexts in promoting social justice. The relationship between disability and migratory background is a relatively unexplored topic in international scientific literature (Colombo, Tarantino, Boccagni, 2022). Disability is often marginalized in Migration Studies, while Disability Studies have frequently overlooked the intersection of factors such as migratory background and geographic origin (Pisani, Grech, 2015). Both themes – disability and migrations – are individually central to numerous studies and policies. However, most social interventions present a "satellite" model characterized by limited or absent communication between services, resulting in a fragmented and less accessible approach to inclusion (Zanfrini, Formichi, 2023). In this context, the research identifies the educational world as a privileged field of investigation. While learning environments often serve as sites for the reproduction of existing social inequalities (Pitzalis, 2019), they also represent the settings where interstitial mechanisms contributing to the reproduction of disadvantages and exclusion dynamics become observable (Ferri, Connor, 2005). Furthermore, as places of knowledge and discourse production – in a Foucauldian sense – educational environments have significant potential in creating and/or transforming dominant cultural representations. Starting from the empirical analysis of data collected during focus groups involving students, school personnel, and relevant educational offices - within a regional project (Lombardy) aimed at improving service accessibility for individuals with disabilities and migratory backgrounds - this contribution explores the potential of an intersectional and non-sectorial approach to promote collective processes of social transformation.

Juvenile penal justice work through the coexistence of many different institutions. First the juvenile court, joined however, by the social service, educators, third sector agencies, psychologists, the school and professional training agencies.

We can imagine juvenile penal justice devices as a part of the State deputed to the achievement of a twofold goal: 1) imposing sanctions on the offender, thus rebalancing the relationship between him and the victim; 2) redefining the children's ability to live within society at large. This 'pedagogical-punitive' ambivalence of institutional action reflects and structures the agentivity of subjects caught within the field. The juvenile justice system is built and crossed by a multiplicity of people, institutions and narratives cooperating and colliding in the day by day management of youth deviance. All these knowledge confront, ally, and clash in describing and defining the subjectivity of the child, his or her most intimate characteristics, his or her suffering or potential abilities.

From the juvenile social service take in charge, the spotlight is turning on not only on the crime committed but on the socio-cultural situation in which the boy is immersed in its totality. The role played by the family, his school performance, his daily hauntings and his ability to get involved are highlighted. Central to the process of character re-enrollment (Rodhes 2001) of young people is the active role played by training, both school and professional. Demonstrating commitment becomes the yardstick for assessing willingness to change, to reintegrate into society and to abandon deviant conduct. It is also the tool for the third sector and social workers to imagine an employment future for the boy taken into care. Professional training or school are playing a decisive role in evaluating the outcome of the boys' probation paths. But these are the same boys with the highest difficulties in the schooling and training path (Bourdieu 2014). A stalemate is created. What is at stake, is getting the authority to impose a regime of truth (Foucault 2014) about the lives of young people. The same young people who lead a battle to invalidate the authority which tries to define them through different strategies The boys themselves and the operators try to break out on a daily basis, relying on the most creative strategies (Vigh 2010). What elements of meaning do they refer to in establishing and affirming their presence?

This paper aims to describe the role played by training agencies and the concept of work and training within the "re-educational" pathways of youth in contact with the criminal justice system. Through ethnographic research, an attempt will be made to describe the strategies adopted by social workers and youths.

The pandemic produced a devastating economic and social impact; Covid-19 can be considered the “trigger” of pre-existing situations of marginality and of latent dynamics of social exclusion, increasing multiple forms of vulnerability. Among the consequences in terms of social deprivation, we underline the cultural poverty of children and adolescents, caused by the closure of schools and of extracurricular collective spaces. The students’ skills decreased: low performances have favoured school drop-out phenomena, mechanisms of isolation, and long-term de-culturalization processes. Minors living in interstitial dynamics have been the most exposed to weakness: their families – especially those ones with a migratory background – have showed difficulties to guarantee a concrete support in children’s growth and educational pathways. Within this framework, the cohesion of territorial communities has emerged by empowering Proximity Welfare strategies to help young generations. The “creativity” of local nodes (Public Institutions, Social Work, Third Sector) has generated innovative experiments and formal, informal, and interstitial solutions, by planning forms of encounter, of listening, of social support.

Our proposal is about Welfare paths in facing educational poverty. We refer here to a study conducted by the University of Pisa, aimed at investigating the community networks in Tuscany, which act in particular contexts characterized by critical socio-economic and educational conditions.

To reach our objectives we identified three case studies. We tried to understand how proximity Welfare, especially based on the role of Third Sector, has realized local models of “inverted subsidiarity” within an enlarged public sphere: the selected experiences give attention to marginalized/discriminated young students, by assuming a situated, systemic perspective of collaboration in response to citizens’ needs. Starting from the analysis of institutional projects and voluntary organizations’ initiatives, acting to compensate for educational deficits and de-culturalization processes, we identified Caritas entities as the central nodes of community welfare: they play a role of gatekeepers in reaching the needs of the weaker segments of population, and in implementing support activities based upon the public-private system interactions. Moreover, Caritas are able to promote social integration by less bureaucratic, economic and formal obstacles.

A mixed-methods methodology was used. The qualitative approach, following the Constructivist Grounded Theory, made it possible to investigate the dimension of meanings given by individuals experiencing new forms of marginality. From a quantitative point of view, a Social Network Analysis perspective helped in reconstructing the dimension of territorial welfare systems. Results do not merely answer to descriptive purpose, but design a possible key to understand social fragilities, which can also be interpreted in terms of pro-active social policies, to be proposed and/or feasible, and of multi-level strategies of interventions.

The outputs can be summarized into the following assets: 1) the link between the pandemic emergency and the educational poverty in the increasing of social exclusion processes; 2) the emergence of best practices, in order to express policy proposals oriented to realize efficient and coherent strategies of community empowerment; 3) the reconstruction of proximity welfare networks, starting from the territorial specificities in terms of constraints, opportunities and dissemination of a solidarity culture.

In line with international regulations, the Italian juvenile justice system is designed to protect the best interests of minor offenders and aid their personal development (D.P.R. 448/88). As a result, detention represents a last resort in dealing with crimes committed by young offenders (Ministero della Giustizia, 2022). Many juvenile offenders come from socially marginalized backgrounds, which makes it difficult to apply community-based criminal measures. For that reason, especially for minors from deviant families or unaccompanied foreign minors, there is a high risk of reproducing the mechanism of injustice and marginalization. To ensure the principle of "residual nature of detention" in all situations, Italian law allows juvenile offenders to be placed in residential care facilities. In those facilities, a professional team of educators designs a personalized educational project, to respond to the dual institutional mandate of ensuring the execution of the sentence and reintegrating the minor into the social context of belongings. The project aims to involve various educational settings such as schools, training centers, and cultural and sports associations. Therefore, the educational experiences of minors living in residential care are carried out in several different educational settings, in addition to the residential care itself. The educational experiences lie not only in the area of formal education but also in the non-formal and informal, in an educational continuum perspective (Merico & Scardigno, 2022). The contribution presents some results that emerged from doctoral research, which aims to explore the educational practices adopted by educators working with juvenile offenders in residential care. Due to an ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Palareti, 2009) particular attention is paid to the role of every social setting involved in the education of young offenders with a focus on networking. The research used a qualitative approach, data were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The data results from interviews conducted with coordinators and managers of residential care for youth in the Lazio region (Italy) who work with juvenile offenders. The results show the interviewee's opinions concerning education practices with young offenders from their experience: despite the difficulty in achieving it, networking plays a crucial role in achieving the goal of social reintegration for adolescents.