Conference Program

Italian and international universities are attended by students with special training needs, which do not always fall within the category of Special Educational Needs (SEN) (Savarese, D’Elia, 2018). The latest figures on this subject, dating from the 2019–2020 academic year, show that only 2.13% of students enrolled at Italian universities have a disability or a specific learning difficulty (ANVUR, 2022), but there are no figures available for other needs. The focus on special training needs as opposed to SEN stems from conceptual and regulatory reasons: first and foremost, the definition of educational need refers, in both the Italian and international contexts (OECD, 2022), to developmental difficulties (Ianes, 2006) that tend to emerge by the age of eighteen, which relate to the developmental stage but fall within a clearly defined framework (UNESCO, 1994; MIUR, 2012); as the adjective itself implies, these are needs that arise within the educational context. It is a different matter to consider the heterogeneity of needs, of varying scope, which manifest themselves not during school age but during the transition to adulthood or in adulthood. Despite this, in common international language, training needs and educational needs are often translated in the same way, under the umbrella term SEN, overlooking the important nuance of meaning that distinguishes them.

Three significant studies from different universities, selected for their relevance to the topic, the University of Salerno (Savarese, D'Elia, 2018), the University of Parma (Antonietti, Luciano, Pintus, 2024), and the University of Salento (Pinnelli et al., 2024) report that universities have training needs that are not only related to certifiable conditions that arise during the academic career. This finding is also reflected in the guidelines of the CNUDD (CNUDD, 2024), which guide universities in managing different situations that do not fall within the current regulations on university inclusion (i.e., Law 104/92, Law 118/1971 and Law 170/2010 and subsequent regulatory updates), according to the principle of reasonable accommodation.

The primary objective of this study is to review the national and international scientific literature on the subject and then analyse some case studies from national university teaching practice.

In this regard, the aim is to examine the various approaches to managing training needs within Italian universities, the schemes designed, and the measures put in place to support students who, during their studies, face different needs – namely, non-traditional students (Pinnelli et al., 2024); that is to say, a group of students with varied needs and requirements, including, for example, temporary vulnerabilities, disabilities, and linguistic, cultural and social disadvantages. In this sense, this study also includes those who lack ‘social capital’, that is, a network of personal relationships that an individual can directly draw upon to pursue their goals and improve their social position (Bourdieu, 1980). Social capital thus identifies a particular set of resources – those present in the relationships an individual maintains with the surrounding community – without which they could not have the same opportunities for social stratification (Bourdieu, Passeron 1977).