Conference Program

Educational inequalities in secondary schools remain a structural challenge across Europe, with early school leaving disproportionately affecting students from disadvantaged socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds (European Commission, 2020). In the Italian context, the Tuscan region has addressed this challenge through the large-scale policy “Leggere: Forte! Ad alta voce fa crescere l’intelligenza”, a regional programme promoting systematic reading aloud in schools as a tool for educational equity (Batini, 2021). Building on six years of implementation and previous results, the “Leggere Forte 4.0 (2025–2028)” research project, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Siena and coordinated by Prof. Maria Rita Mancaniello, extends this intervention to secondary schools, investigating how reading aloud can function as a democratic educational practice capable of reversing structural inequalities. This contribution presents the theoretical framework and the preliminary research design of the 2025–2026 phase, articulated in three interconnected strands. The first develops a predictive model for dropout risk using cluster analysis and artificial neural networks, identifying individual, relational and contextual variables that signal disengagement from schooling. The second, grounded in Participatory Action Research (Orefice, 2006), explores the effects of reading aloud on critical-reflective thinking, the capacity to recognise one’s own desire (Recalcati, 2014), and an ironic forma mentis (Cambi, 2008; Carletti, 2024), pedagogical categories understood as resources for navigating complexity and fostering agency. The third introduces a case study that aims to analyse and validate the practice of silent reading in virtual reality environments, in comparison with traditional reading, focusing on comprehension, motivation, emotional wellbeing and attention management. Crucially, the project aligns reading aloud with the European LifeComp framework (Sala et al., 2020), mapping its effects across personal, social and learning-to-learn competences. This alignment allows the intervention to be interpreted not merely as a literacy practice, but as a transversal device for democratic learning, one that cultivates the civic, relational and metacognitive capabilities necessary for active participation in democratic life. The study involves approximately 300-400 pre-adolescents and adolescents in Tuscan secondary schools, with mixed-methods data collection including standardised instruments, observation grids, reflective diaries, focus groups and digital VR logs. The analytical approach integrates quantitative and qualitative methods through methodological triangulation (Mortari, 2007; Mortari & Ghirotto, 2019), consistent with the project’s naturalistic and transformative orientation (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). The contribution argues that reading aloud, when embedded within a participatory and critically informed pedagogical framework, constitutes a successful and scalable intervention for reducing educational inequalities. By enabling students to develop desire, irony and critical agency, it transforms the classroom into a space of democratic co-construction, where traditionally marginalised learners can become protagonists of their own educational trajectories.