Conference Program

This contribution presents the findings of the PRIN project, “The School as a Democratic Learning Environment: Promoting Civic and Citizenship Education (CCE) through a Whole-School Approach (WSA) in the First Cycle of Education”. Drawing on the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competence for a Democratic Culture (RFCDC, 2018), the project explores the implementation of the Whole-School Approach (WSA), which integrates democratic values across three pillars: teaching and learning, school governance, and community partnerships.

The project consists of two phases: the first is dedicated to analyzing the contexts for CCE in a whole-school approach in six schools (two for each research unit) (Damiani, Ciani, Bevilacqua, 2024) through case studies (Yin, 2003); the second involves the implementation of Research-based Teacher Professional Development trainings (Ricerca-Formazione, R-F) (Asquini, 2019) for teachers working in each of the participating schools. These trainings are part of the research work carried out within the CRESPI center on the R-F approach.

The study focuses on the second phase of the project: the implementation of Research-based Teacher Professional Development training within two primary and lower secondary schools in Rome. The core of the intervention was the co-design of competence-oriented activities, i.e. interdisciplinary projects designed to let students “experience” citizenship in real-world contexts, such as neighborhood revitalization, digital communication, and schools’ initiatives. The trainings adopted a data-driven, collaborative methodology, utilizing the SARF self-assessment tool (Bondioli et al., 2025) to guide the negotiation of objectives between university researchers and teachers, to outline the different phases of R-F with greater clarity and to trace correspondences with the five fundamental points of Ricerca-Formazione.

The Research-based Teacher Professional Development trainings highlight several critical aspects related to the promotion and implementation of citizenship education at the school level, ranging from the challenges of introducing methodological innovations and structural barriers to the need to address verticality and continuity across cycles (primary and lower secondary cycles). While, on the one hand, the use of competence-oriented activities effectively shifted the focus from theoretical content to “citizenship in action”, increasing student motivation and community engagement, on the other, significant challenges remain regarding collegial cooperation, particularly in lower secondary schools. Although institutional curricula emphasize verticality, the practical implementation of continuity between primary and secondary levels proved difficult to achieve without external intervention.

The research underscores that universities serve as essential actors for change, providing the theoretical scaffolding and reflective spaces necessary for teachers to rethink their pedagogical and evaluative practices.

In conclusion, while the WSA offers a powerful framework for transforming citizenship education and school culture into a democratic learning environment, and Ricerca-Formazione can act as a valuable approach to promote it, its success depends on overcoming organizational constraints—such as time for shared planning—and ensuring continuity in professional development beyond the lifespan of specific research projects.