Conference Program

The research is based on a year of ethnographic observation of three groups of students at different stages of their education in four schools in Bologna: two second-year classes in lower secondary school; two classes in the first two years of upper secondary school; and a group of young adult activists with disabilities. Integrating socio-anthropological literature and Disability Studies, the study focused on how guidance practices contribute to the construction of a representation of disabled people by teachers and help to propose to young disabled people an identity to internalise and an educational trajectory to adhere to, producing a looping effect specific to the school field. These representations correspond to imaginaries and educational opportunities that privilege medical-functional needs over personal aspirations. Secondly, through a socio-material analysis of guidance practices, it observed in action some guidance devices - teaching materials, “consigli di orientamento” and differentiation of the PEI - which contribute to the over-representation of students with disabilities in technical and vocational education. This streaming is facilitated by a process of “platformisation” of guidance (Unica) which centralises the collection of information and reduces the complex educational process of choice to a predetermined future to adhere to. The school life stories of the group of young adult activists have served as a tool to shed light on the material and cultural barriers in the students' experiences and their strategies of resistance and rebellion against the destinies offered to them. Can the human being be a project? A project of whom and for whom?