Conference Program

Recent contributions (Purdy et al., 2023; Goodwin et al., 2023; Persico, 2024; Baldacci, 2024) highlight a dichotomous tension between two prevailing paradigms of initial teacher education: managerial professionalism and democratic professionalism. Within the former, teachers’ professional identity is framed within a technical–administrative perspective, characterized by top-down orientations in which evaluation assumes a controlling function through standardized procedures and balance-report logics (Giovannini & Santanicchia, 2022). In this framework, teachers’ professional practice is constrained by standards and competences primarily defined in technical and procedural terms.

By contrast, the second paradigm emphasizes the importance of constructing a professional profile capable of actively and responsibly participating in school decision-making processes and learning from experience. From this perspective, teacher competence involves professional choices that require the orchestration of action schemes applicable to a range of situations of both technical and ethical-social nature.

To navigate this impasse, the concept of professional competence and assessment require more detailed investigation. Drawing from Haywood and Lidz (2006) while the chief cognitive developmental task of childhood is acquisition and elaboration of fundamental cognitive processes (structures, functions, operations), by adulthood the primary cognitive task has gradually shifted to one of selection, application, and metacognitive control of these processes, as well as the management of ethical and relational dimensions connected with a specific task (Margiotta 2018). This shift is particularly relevant in the case of professional competence, understood both as the orchestration of action schemes and as an ethical–practical disposition.

Consequently, the task of assessment often consists in identifying the presence or absence of structured habits of action and estimating the level of investment required to strengthen these habits in terms of cognitive, relational, and ethical resources. This idea focuses on the concepet of dynamic evaluation (Piacenza, 2023).

From this perspective the research question addressed: How can an evaluation model capture teachers’ professional practice into observable indicators through observable indicators without reducing it to technical functions or abstract ethical principles?

To address this issue, the paper proposes an “identity-based evaluation framework” (Zavatta & Lazzari, 2026). At the theoretical level, this approach moves evaluation beyond its exclusively bureaucratic and certification-oriented function, repositioning it as a process of sense-making and qualification of professional experience (Karimi & Mansouri, 2025). From a research perspective, evaluation is articulated across four dimensions: cognitive–metacognitive, affective–motivational, interactive–relational, and existential (Pellerey, 2006).

The contribution therefore focuses on perspectives of evaluation rather than specific tools, paying particular attention to three key dimensions of professional identity: the subjective, the social-collective, and the professional-agentive.