Conference Program

Hospital schooling represents one of the most challenging contexts in which education systems are called to guarantee continuity, inclusion, and educational justice. Students undergoing severe medical treatment often experience prolonged isolation, fragmented learning trajectories, and significant emotional vulnerability. Within this framework, pedagogical care becomes central to sustaining participation and maintaining meaningful connections with learning. This paper explores the introduction of reading aloud as a pedagogical and relational strategy within hospital education, particularly for secondary school students affected by serious illness, whose educational pathways are frequently interrupted at a critical stage of identity and cognitive development.

In the Italian context, the Scuola in Ospedale and Istruzione Domiciliare services aim to ensure the right to education and prevent school disengagement among students unable to attend traditional classrooms. National guidelines highlight the importance of personalized teaching practices and relational support in these environments. Despite the growing recognition of narrative practices in educational research, reading aloud in hospital schooling remains an underexplored field, especially in relation to teacher professional practices and inclusive pedagogical frameworks in secondary education, where curricular pressures and disciplinary specialization often limit the adoption of shared reading practices.

Drawing on literature on shared reading, pedagogical care, and democratic education, the paper argues that reading aloud can function as a low-threshold, flexible, and inclusive didactic strategy capable of fostering emotional safety, narrative identity, and continuity of learning even in highly fragile contexts. The contribution outlines a teaching proposal designed for lower and upper secondary school settings, emphasizing dialogic pauses, interpretative discussion, and the teacher’s voice as a stabilizing relational presence. In this perspective, reading aloud becomes not a compensatory activity but a structured pedagogical practice that allows students-patients to remain intellectually engaged while participating in a shared cultural experience despite clinical constraints.

The contribution situates reading aloud within a broader framework of democratic education, interpreting it not only as a literacy practice but also as a space of encounter, recognition, and participation. By focusing on the professional culture of teachers working across school, hospital, and home environments, the paper highlights how reading aloud can reshape pedagogical relationships, enabling teachers to balance curricular goals with care-oriented practices. Particular attention is devoted to the secondary school context, where dialogic reading may support critical thinking, interpretative agency, and relational continuity during periods of medical vulnerability.

The study contributes to current debates on educational continuity and pedagogical justice by proposing reading aloud as an accessible and sustainable practice capable of rehumanizing educational experiences in contexts of illness. It also identifies future research directions, including qualitative investigations on teachers’ reflective practices, students’ narrative engagement, and the development of inclusive reading protocols tailored specifically to hospital secondary schooling.