Conference Program

This contribution presents a community-based practice developed to counteract widening inequality, persistent poverty, and increasing socio-spatial polarisation. Through the Sguardi inSUStituibili initiative (promoted by CESPEFI – Centre for Family and Childhood Education Studies), it illustrates a participatory documentation process that, in 2024 and 2025, involved all educational institutions in a specific district of Brescia marked by socio-cultural complexity, segregation and high levels of vulnerability.

As part of the broader SUS (Sustainable Urban Development) Strategy promoted by the Municipality of Brescia, participatory documentation served as a strategic tool to reinforce the role of schools as key institutions for social cohesion, equal opportunities, and democratic participation. In a highly marginalised area, schools recognised themselves not only as places of instruction but also as privileged observatories of inequality and catalysts of collective learning processes.

Each social and educational actor in the area observes inequality from different and partial perspectives. Participatory documentation enabled these viewpoints to be connected, valuing both professional knowledge and everyday practices. Through the systematic collection of observations, narratives, educational materials, and qualitative evidence, it became possible to make visible the learning processes generated by the SUS project and to identify the changes emerging at both educational and community levels.

The collected materials were discussed in teachers’ meetings, assemblies, and community round tables, ultimately converging in a public event with local authorities and associations. This dialogic dimension nurtured a culture of transparency, open discussion, and shared responsibility, transforming the school into a genuine community laboratory—a place where democracy is enacted through collective interpretation of processes, reflection on choices, and evaluation of outcomes.

The involvement of all actors in producing and interpreting documentation strengthened a sense of collective responsibility in addressing inequality. Documenting together means revealing what is often invisible: everyday educational processes, pedagogical decisions, students’ real needs, and interactions between schools and their surrounding territory. This fosters a public culture grounded in dialogue and mutual accountability.

Participatory territorial documentation also makes it possible to identify barriers and resources, recognises inequalities in access to educational opportunities, brings to light latent assets within the community, and gives visibility to innovative practices that exist but are not yet systematised. It is not conceived as a project for communication, but rather as a transformative device—an engine of social cohesion, a space for democratic participation, and a driver of shared growth for all institutions involved.

Through joint reflection and continuous review, the initiative promoted pedagogical innovation and inclusion, turning the inequality‑reduction project into a collective process of learning, evaluation, and civic action. By valuing the contributions of all participants, it helped steer the local education system toward greater equity and social justice.

As the promoter and guardian of this territorial documentation process, the school strengthened its public legitimacy as a democratic institution. It assumed a role of cultural leadership within the educational community and presented itself to citizens as a space for dialogue, knowledge, and the collective construction of social justice.