Conference Program

This paper presents the objectives, methodology, and outputs of the Erasmus+ PoEmS project (Promoting Emotional Intelligence at School). The project focuses on promoting Emotional Intelligence (EI) in middle and high school students and teachers, considering it a key competence for inclusion (Jagers, Rivas-Drake & Williams, 2019), with a direct impact on human rights education and global citizenship (Kubacka, 2018). The project integrates emotional learning into the school curriculum, using EI as a tool for raising awareness of social justice and combating discrimination (Biemmi & Viviani, 2025). EI is here intended as a multifaceted construct, composed of situated social and cultural dimensions, such as embodied knowledge and activation (Bar-On, 2006).

Research Design

Consistent with this premise, the Unisi research team adopted an intersectional research paradigm (Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2022; De Vita & Romano, 2025; Viviani, 2018). This epistemological and methodological choice stemmed from the researchers' deep reflection on their own positioning and on the power dynamics acted within the research. They recognized the risk of rendering the voices and experiences of the partner schools (from Italy, Turkey, Spain, Romania, and Latvia) invisible if participatory research models were not used. The project aimed to enhance the situated knowledge (Lave, & Wenger, 1991) of teachers in partner schools, considering them to be holders of unique and authoritative perspectives. Recognizing that each school was a “g-local context” with its situated norms and cultures, an “ethic of reciprocity” (Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2022) based on symmetrical and collaborative relationships was established within the partnership. Through a shared drive, a mailing list, regular online meetings, and a week of in-person training, it was possible to engage in epistemic collaboration (Fricker, 2007) that led to the co-construction of two main outputs: a training package for teachers, which includes self-assessment tests and theoretical references, and a repertoire of twenty multidisciplinary lesson plans.

The process of designing, validating, and testing the lesson plans will be specifically analyzed. Each school proposed four lesson plans, which were then integrated and adapted by the other partners in an intensive in-person training. To give a voice to teachers not directly involved in the project, the research team involved 292 teachers in the validation process through a peer review consisting of Likert scales and an open-ended question.

Results and Implications for Practice

This ‘multi-level’ process of development, writing, and validation is not merely a technical step, but embodies the epistemology of the project: to provide resources that are the result of the application of multidimensional and multi-axial interpretative frameworks. Resources that can adapt to the intersectional specificity of school contexts, without appearing overly broad and generic, ‘one size that should fit all’ (De Vita & Romano, 2025).

Through the experience of the PoEmS project, our aim is to theorize that the construction of democratic and inclusive societies cannot be separated from the commitment of educational systems to promote a polyphonic, emotionally intelligent dialogue, capable of cultivating a plurality of voices while respecting pluriverse belonging and human rights (Kubacka, 2018).