Conference Program

This contribution is situated within the framework of a critical pedagogy that adopts complexity as its meta-model, within which epistemological, ethical and value-based, and political issues can be contextualized (Cambi, 2025). It is in this perspective, with the tensions it nurtures, that the problem of cultural poverty, related to fundamental human rights, must be contextualized. A democratic community is one in which people participate and concretely contribute to the life of the community (Dewey, 1916), however, participation today - perhaps more than in the past- requires a sense of being recognised, of feeling like an active part of a common history and destiny. Common goals and shared interests, in fact, promote cohesion among individuals, communities, and cultures.The ethical dimension underlying democracy therefore continues to play a central role today, because many unresolved issues require overcoming uncertainties and difficulties, negative conditions, and limitations that hinder citizens' participation in community life: a weak socio-cultural position (Biasin, 2021), increasing inequalities accentuated by job insecurity, economic instability, hardship, insecurity, and uncertainty create a vulnerability that is also a source of anxiety and suffering for people (Han, 2024), of apathy and alienation from what is happening. People increasingly live as indivisible monads, lacking authentic contact; most relationships arise from random and accidental collisions (Chomsky, 2014), without real interest, with a loss of faith in opportunities for redemption that can instead arise from the sense of belonging and spirit of sharing necessary to understand the meaning of existence (Biasin, 2022). Furthermore, the absence of common goals inevitably contributes to the impoverishment of the relational space, with important repercussions on democratic and civil life, because the sense of co-belonging crumbles: individuals feel alienated, detached, and with resignation mixed with passivity, they ‘choose’ to remain on the margins of human interaction, losing the profound sense of human togetherness (Bauman, 2010). If we understand citizenship as an expression of involvement and recognition within a community of belonging, we must also consider the skills that enable people to act actively in these life contexts (Parricchi, 2019, 2021; Fabbri & Soriani, 2021). Added to this widespread feeling of unease and vulnerability is the cognitive gap relating to information and knowledge. This gap is accentuated by disinformation that generates post-truth dynamics based on partial beliefs and opinions, founded on prejudices and fallacious premises. In this ecosystem, it is difficult for people to interpret, decode, and understand what is happening: words are misunderstood, languages are lost in a Tower of Babel, and superficiality reigns, obscuring the value of symbolic and ethical-relational dimensions (Dominici, 2026). This is where education that cultivates analytical, critical, and systemic thinking skills (Goleman & Senge, 2014) can turn educational institutions, communities, cultural associations, meeting centers, and youth spaces into places of humanization capable of generating the future (D'Aprile, 2025), promoting development, and encouraging social participation.