Conference Program

The cross-border, hybrid teaching project Thinking Together, developed by the Universities of Teacher Education St.Gallen (Switzerland) and Vorarlberg (Austria), addresses the urgent need to strengthen diversity-sensitive competences in pre-service teachers. By focusing on critical reflexivity, the project empowers future educators to navigate the complexities of forced migration and inclusion in increasingly diverse classrooms (Barsch, 2017).

Building on existing mentoring and summer school programs, where students support newly arrived or refugee pupils, Thinking Together integrates structured reflection sessions guided by interdisciplinary experts (e.g., critical race theory, multilingualism, trauma studies, migration). These sessions encourage participants to critically examine their professional roles, personal biases, and the societal power structures shaping education. Reflection is conceptualized as a dynamic process—bridging reflection-on-action and reflection-for-action (Christof, 2022)—to foster an attitude of continuous self-assessment and perspective-taking.

Forced migration serves as a catalyst for exploring broader issues of inequality and social justice in education. The project’s interdisciplinary approach (Boix Mansilla, 2010) enables students to synthesize diverse perspectives, addressing educational challenges that transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Completed in late 2025, the project’s impact was evaluated through a self-assessment tool targeting five key themes: asylum/forced migration, multilingualism, trauma/empowerment, school social work, and anti-racism. Preliminary findings (n=20) indicate significant growth in participants’ perceived knowledge across all areas, as measured by pre- and post-program questionnaires. Focus group discussions further illuminated the program’s transformative potential from multiple viewpoints.

At the conference, we will present these evaluation results and discuss how critical reflexivity can advance inclusive teaching practices in contexts of migration and diversity—contributing to broader dialogues on democracy, equity, and education.

This contribution addresses the panel’s focus on educators as agents of change by proposing an institutional ecosystemic model of Transformative Education (TE) developed at the University of Trento. Building on transformative learning theory (Mezirow 2000) and education for sustainable development (Vare and Scott 2007), we situate TE within a ‘postdigital’ society characterized by ‘permacrisis’ – from climate emergencies to democratic backsliding – in which education is increasingly called upon to cultivate critical, participatory, and justice-oriented forms of citizenship.

While policy frameworks such as the UNESCO’s 2024 Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development (UNESCO 2024) and SDG 4.7 call for the integration of global citizenship, sustainability, and democratic engagement into formal education systems, educators often lack the institutional conditions necessary to align their practice with these expectations. Moving beyond ‘soft’ approaches to global citizenship education (Andreotti 2006), we argue that teacher agency cannot be sustained as an individual disposition alone. Instead, we see it embedded within an ongoing cycle of continuous professional development and transnational practice, supported by institutional structures that enable teachers to act as agents of change.

Our analysis focuses on the interplay between two European initiatives: GrACE – Green Europe: Active Citizenship and the Environment (GrACE, 2023–2026) and Schools beyond Regions and Borders (SBRB, 2021–2026). We conceptualize these not as separate projects, but as a circular ecosystem linking theoretical reflection, professional development, and transnational civic practice

GrACE functions as the theoretical hub, offering educators cyclical webinar programmes and residential intensives focused on the environmental humanities, climate justice, European policy, and the psychology of the climate crisis. It also equips them with transformative methodologies – ranging from systems thinking to media literacy, from Philosophy for Children to structured debate – while explicitly positioning the teacher as a ‘climate citizen’ and political subject.

SBRB serves as the ‘living laboratory’ where these competences are enacted. By connecting secondary schools across Europe in sustained collaboration, it enables teachers to operationalize their training in real-world, multilingual, cross-border contexts. Within this framework, teachers move beyond content delivery to co-design teaching materials, facilitate structured dialogue, and guide students in critical discussions on themes such as gender equality, social media literacy, sustainability, constitutional democracy, and peacebuilding.

We argue that the iterative movement between theoretical reflection (GrACE) and transnational practice (SBRB) constitutes the enabling condition for sustaining the ‘educator as agent of change’. This ecosystem allows teachers to experiment with bold, innovative pedagogies in a supported environment, transforming the classroom into a space of active democratic participation. We highlight how connecting local educational pacts with European networks helps educators overcome the paralysis often associated with global crises, fostering a sense of professional efficacy and transnational solidarity. Drawing on multiple sources of evidence – teacher questionnaires, collaboratively produced lesson plans, teacher feedback on project-designed materials, and student-created artifacts – we identify the institutional and pedagogical conditions required to sustain such an ecosystem. We conclude by offering this model not as a project-based intervention, but as a scalable institutional framework for embedding TE within formal schooling systems.

Transformative education cannot be reduced to curricular reform or progressive policy articulation; it is realised through the everyday pedagogical judgments, ethical orientations, and relational practices of educators operating within historically structured systems. Grounded in a theory of transformative education that recognises schooling as inherently political (Mayo, 2003), this paper advances the concept of Invisible Pedagogical Mindsets (IPMs) as a framework for understanding how educators enact, mediate, or reconfigure reform aspirations into democratic and transformative classroom practice.

IPMs refer to the historically sedimented interplay of culture, local education ecosystems, and dominant learning theories that tacitly govern pedagogical decision-making. Conceptually, IPMs extend democratic education scholarship by shifting attention from formal policy design and institutional structures to the epistemic and relational substrata through which authority, knowledge, and legitimacy are interpreted in classrooms. In the postcolonial Indian context, successive layers of textbook dependency, marginalisation of indigenous epistemologies, and market-oriented standardisation have crystallised into everyday assumptions teachers hold about teaching, learning and their own professional identity. These mindsets hold a language of critique (Giroux, 1985) where systemic analysis ties educational reform to structurally conditioned forms of oppression, exposing the contradictions concealed beneath dominant, hegemonic discourse. Without attending to these invisible substrates or IPMs, transformative aspirations risk being absorbed into compliance-driven routines rather than enacted as dialogical practice (Thomas, 1991).

Drawing on the Strengthening Pedagogical Approaches for Relevant Knowledge and Skills (SPARKS) project, developed by Brookings Institution, this study examines qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with teachers, teacher educators, and policy actors across four Indian states, namely, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Jharkhand, and Goa. The study interrogates the tension between the transformative vision of India’s National Education Policy 2020 and the lived realities of schooling. While participants describe structural constraints, performative accountability pressures, and limited institutional recognition, they also demonstrate situated agency in reworking dominant pedagogical logics.

The findings show that transformative education is enacted through micro-relational practices that subtly reconfigure power within classrooms. Teachers cultivate psychologically safe spaces, embed dignity and inclusion into everyday instruction, and redefine educational success in ethical and civic terms. These practices resonate with Freire’s (1970) dialogical pedagogy and Giroux’s (1985) language of possibility, illustrating how educators function as democratic actors who negotiate and contest hegemonic reform narratives from within.

By foregrounding IPMs as the analytic hinge between structure and agency, the paper argues that transformative education must be understood as praxis emerging through educators’ situated interpretation of reform, answering Mayo’s (2003) question “with whom does the agency for social transformation lie?” Systemic change, therefore, requires not only policy mandates but the democratisation of pedagogical authority, the legitimisation of relational and care-centred practice, and the creation of collective spaces for reflective inquiry. Transformative education, in this account, is not delivered through reform; it is enacted through educators’ capacity to reinterpret inherited pedagogical mindsets toward more just and dialogical forms of schooling.

Building on discussions from the Villa Vigoni colloquium on Transformative Education, this paper examines adult education in migratory contexts, arguing that meaningful transformation requires attention to both structural conditions and embodied experience. Adult learning for people with migratory backgrounds is often marked by profound ontological questions about how to make sense of the world and (re)imagine possible selves (Morrice 2012). These processes can be disruptive, involving the unlearning of taken-for-granted assumptions and deep reconfigurations of identity within hostile or uncertain conditions. A transformative learning approach should recognise this contextual complexity and its contradictions, including possible impacts on identity and self-concept, to remain attentive to the full range of learning experiences.

It is important to acknowledge that not everyone has equal access to "windows of opportunity" for transformation, since these chances are often limited by social, cultural, and personal circumstances (Batacharya 2018). Nonetheless, for those whose lives have been marked by violence or worn down by the hardship of everyday life, the prospect of “feeling better” is both meaningful and politically significant (Ahmed 2004). Transformative education thus relies on learning environments that support and validate even small steps toward improved well-being, while acknowledging the complexity of contexts.

This paper foregrounds embodied learning as an essential transformative approach in education, focusing on adult learners with migratory backgrounds. Based on Roxana Ng’s theoretical framework (2000, 2011), this perspective demonstrates that power dynamics - including racism, sexism, and colonialism - are embedded not only in conceptual domains but also within the body. The body serves as a locus for the production, contestation, and possible transformation of knowledge. In Ng’s view, embodied learning extends beyond cognitive critique; it can make visible the everyday reproduction of dominant-subaltern relations and create possibilities for change. Embodied work, therefore, is integral to transformative education because it links critical reflection with emotional and physical transformation.

Drawing on fieldwork in diverse adult refugee education and training settings, this paper develops theoretical and practical insights from interviews and collaborative work with educators. Attention is given to their embodied perspectives and practices: how they arrange rooms and position tables, when they choose to speak or remain silent, how their bodies relate to learners’, and how they attend to breath. The analysis demonstrates that embodied practices play a vital role in transformative education by converting fragmented learning environments into spaces that promote well-being, critical reflection, and collaborative learning. These practices become increasingly significant - and often more challenging to maintain - when learning takes place online.

Given the focus on embodiment and the interactive nature of the panel, the presentation will not only involve listening and watching slides, but also a brief photo‑elicitation activity that invites self-reflection on bodies in relation to what the images evoke, in dialogue with key concepts from Ng’s framework. This aims to make abstract ideas more tangible and to open a shared reflection on embodied transformative education in adult (migratory) contexts, as well as directions for further embodied research.

This contribution examines how transformative education is enacted in practice from the perspective of students attending the Free School Leipzig, a democratic school connected to the European Democratic Education Community (EUDEC). Situated within current debates on transformative education, democratic schooling, and pedagogical innovation, the paper focuses on learning in a setting where participation in formal learning activities is not compulsory.

The contribution is based on a participatory qualitative study developed together with a young student from the school, who will conduct peer interviews and focus groups with fellow students at the Free School Leipzig and do participatory observation in a democratic school in Canada. This design is not only methodologically appropriate for accessing students’ perspectives, but also conceptually coherent with scholarship that understands education as a dialogic, democratic, and transformative process. Dialogic and facilitative approaches emphasise participation, shared meaning-making, and the co-construction of knowledge, while democratic education foregrounds student voice, agency, and learners’ capacity to shape the conditions of their own education (Baraldi et al., 2021; Graham & Fitzgerald, 2010; hooks, 2010). In this sense, transformative educational settings are characterised by a move beyond transmission-based models towards learning environments in which students are recognised as co-creators of knowledge, take responsibility, and develop ownership of their educational processes. Such a perspective also redefines the role of teachers, who are understood less as authoritative transmitters of predefined content than as facilitators of meaningful participation, exchange, and power-sharing. Against this background, the paper asks to what extent this specific democratic school supports self-determination, meaningful learning, and shared responsibility, and where tensions or contradictions may emerge in practice.

Empirically, the study asks what motivates students to learn in an environment without compulsion, how they perceive the role of teachers, which teacher qualities they value most, what they experience as better than in other schools, and what they would like to improve. On this basis, the contribution develops a reflection on whether and how students in democratic school settings can be understood as agents of their own transformation.

Rather than treating transformative education as a purely normative aspiration, the contribution investigates how it is lived, interpreted, and evaluated by students themselves. In doing so, it responds to the panel’s concern with educators as agents of change, while shifting attention to learners as co-constitutive actors of educational transformation. By foregrounding student voice, the paper contributes an empirical case study to current discussions on transformative education and democratic schooling and offers a critical reflection on pedagogical relationships, school culture, and the practical conditions under which transformative education may become possible in formal educational settings.

This paper aims to present the initial findings of ongoing research within the ‘ChillOut’ project, run by ‘ForTeen’ (an educational and rehabilitation centre opened by the CADIAI social cooperative in Bologna, which has been operating since 2023).

ChillOut supports young people aged between 15 and 25, in transition from adolescence to adulthood. Institutionally, this involves moving from the Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry Unit (NPIA) to the Mental Health Centre (CSM); existentially, it involves moving from a state of psychological distress towards greater well-being: the service, indeed, is aimed at young adults in a state of vulnerability and psychological distress who are particularly at risk of developing forms of social withdrawal and school phobias, offering them a range of individualised and/or small-group educational activities led by educators and workshop leaders.

ChillOut is designed as an experiential space with a strong practical focus, enabling participants to engage in a ‘safe’ environment by developing their personal potential and fostering their interpersonal and social skills, thereby allowing them to experience a sense of ‘being able to do’ and ‘being able to be’.

The educational program views the process of recovery and rehabilitation as a process of individual emancipation and empowerment. The intervention works together with the individuals to improve their functional abilities, support them in regulating their behaviour, and help them develop or enhance latent skills, in order to achieve greater competences in managing their own actions and dealing with the complexities of their life circumstances, whilst increasing their awareness of their problem-solving and life planning abilities.

ChillOut also acts as an alternative unstructured school experience, for those who are unable to access traditional programs designed to prevent early school leaving.

This educational experience is conceived not only as a place to support studying, but also and above all as a space that evokes the Greek concept of scholè – free time, not performance time. It is a place of care, rest and inner regeneration, a moment of time away from the logic of productivity, in which it is possible both to refrain from judging personal results and to lower personal and social expectations regarding the ability to perform. This educational experience aims at supporting young adults in listening to themselves, understanding their inner states, and taking care of themselves and one another. As a matter of fact, ChillOut wants to facilitate and promote processes of active and horizontal learning, in which not only standard curricular knowledge but also the skills needed to interpret and make sense of one’s own social context are acquired through exchange and discussion.

The porpose of this theoretical and empirical research is not only the description of theoretical assumptions underpinning educational and rehabilitative practice, but also the outcomes' highlights of transformative education - both as rehabilitative practice and as opportunity to acquire the skills necessary for critical and active citizenship. This can bring sustainable changes, promote selfcare and reciprocity, and renew inclusive sensibility, focused on gender equality, and active in the defence and promotion of human rights.