Conference Program

The Council of Europe (CoE) recognizes Service Learning (SL) as pedagogical approach that can develop the full range of Competences for Democratic Culture connecting learning, critical understanding and meaningful civic action (CoE, 2018a). These competences are featured as values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and critical understanding that students need in order to live as active democratic citizens (CoE, 2018b). Some of these competences, such as knowledge and critical understanding of language and communication, linguistic, communicative and plurilingual skills, valuing cultural diversity and openness to cultural otherness, link to the field of Language Education with a specific focus on Plurilingual Education (PE). Indeed, PE is essential to education for Democratic Culture; it encourages critical reflection on cultural diversity and promotes language awareness and students’ full linguistic repertoire (language of schooling, home and additional languages), valuing their voice in all languages (CoE, 2022).

PE has gained great relevance within Language Education in the light of the Multilingual turn in education (May, 2014) and the shift from monolingual to plurilingual perspective prompted in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CoE, 2001, 2020). This innovative change has led to the conceptualization of “Plurilingual Competence” conceived as a set of skills, knowledge and attitudes which shares common features with the Competences for Democratic Culture previously mentioned (Candelier et al., 2012).

In this theoretical framework SL could be a valuable pedagogical reference for PE, considering the importance within this field to encourage pedagogical approaches that empower learners, value their voice and develop their autonomy, critical thinking skills, and language and cultural awareness (CoE, 2022, p.16). Despite its value, there is still the need of further empirical studies on the implementation of SL in the foreign language classroom (Rauschert, 2022), especially when referring to primary school students (Porto, 2023) and the plurilingual perspective in Educational Linguistics (Baker, 2019).

This paper refers to a PhD research project which has been carried out to fill this empirical gap. The research features an exploratory case study involving 42 primary school students, two teachers and community partners settled in northern Italy. Students, teachers and community partners have taken part in a SL project with a linguistic focus which has been designed following Fiorin (2016), along with methodologies and approaches within Plurilingual Education (Candelier et al., 2012; Carbonara & Scibetta, 2020; Melo-Pfeifer, 2023). The aim of the study is to gather methodological evidence on the implementation of SL in Plurilingual Education and to study how students’, teachers’ and community partners’ attitudes towards plurilingualism change over the SL project. Qualitative data has been collected with a longitudinal perspective using researcher’s journal, students’ logbooks, linguistic autobiographies, focus groups with students and interviews with teachers and community partners. This communication intends to present a methodological analysis of the SL project with linguistic focus and the preliminary findings on participants’ attitudes towards plurilingualism.

In recent years, democratic education has increasingly questioned symbolic or consultative forms of youth participation that fail to influence decision-making processes (Hart, 1992; Lundy, 2007). International frameworks such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - CRC (1989) and the UNESCO Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development (2023) call for participatory models that connect rights, institutional accountability, and transformative learning. From this perspective, child participation is not reduced to “giving a voice” but understood as ensuring that young people can influence decisions impacting their lives (CRC, Art. 12).

This paper presents the CINI Method (CINI, 2021) as a child-led participatory framework designed to foster democratic competencies through structured collective action. Grounded in Children’s Rights- and Human Rights-Based approaches, the CINI Method positions children not merely as beneficiaries but primarily as rights-holders and legitimate co-decision makers in local governance. It is organised around four interconnected axes—active participation, accountability of duty-bearers, multisectoral convergence, and prevention—implemented through subsequent cycles of sensitisation, institutionalisation, collective analysis, shared prioritisation, planning, implementation of the plan of action for children, and participatory monitoring. Rather than episodic engagement, participation becomes institutionalised within local governance mechanisms, fostering sustainability and mutual accountability between communities and institutions (FXB Center, 2020).

The discussion draws on the “Community-led Climate Action” project, implemented in 2025 in a rural area of West Bengal (India) exposed to high climate risks. The initiative engaged approximately 30 villages in integrating children’s perspectives into environmental planning. Through the training of peer-leaders (120 children), the use of Social Resource Mapping for identifying local vulnerabilities and resources, and structured collective deliberation processes, children actively contributed to identifying priorities and implementing environmental micro-actions (i.e. waste management, green corridors) embedded in local governance processes. The initiative explicitly addressed environmental justice concerns by linking children’s lived experiences to broader structural vulnerabilities.

Findings indicate that, when participation is connected to real decision-making arenas, it operates as a democratic learning process across multiple levels. Children develop competencies related to deliberative dialogue, collective problem-solving, shared responsibility, and awareness of institutional accountability. At the community level, collaborative practices and collective ownership of environmental challenges were strengthened, helping reduce problems, also from an often-neglected child perspective. At the institutional level, structured interaction between young citizens and local authorities created conditions for preventive governance, with potential medium- and long-term effects.

Overall, the case study suggests that democratic competencies are most effectively cultivated when participation is cyclical, linked to concrete accountability mechanisms, and embedded in rights-based governance structures. For Western education systems, this entails rethinking service learning and participatory pedagogies not as peripheral initiatives, but as structural components of democratic schooling capable of moving beyond symbolic participation toward shared decision-making power and socially just forms of citizenship (Biesta, 2011).

How are access to voice, the legitimacy of youth claims and decision-making power negotiated in participatory processes involving young people and adults? Starting from this question, this contribution presents the methodological design of two pilot experiences of youth participation developed within the Horizon Europe project SINCRONY (Grant n. 101132459) in Northern Italy. The paper is situated within the debate on youth participation and democratic practices in educational and civic contexts. It adopts an intersectional perspective attentive to how age, organizational position, experience and symbolic capital shape opportunities for recognition and inclusion within participatory processes. Research has shown how these dimensions influence access to decision-making spaces and the distribution of legitimacy within participatory arenas (Laforgue et al., 2022). Within this framework, intergenerational dialogue is understood as a space in which actors occupying different positions negotiate meanings, priorities and forms of participation (Schoem & Hurtado, 2001). The contribution discusses two situated implementations of the IPARD approach (Intersectional Participatory Action Research and Deliberation). The first was conducted in a language-oriented upper secondary school in the city of Cesena and involved approximately eighty students throughout the school year. The process focused on identifying and discussing students’ needs related to school life and participation. The second pilot was developed in collaboration with three donation associations in the Emilia-Romagna region. It involved approximately fifty participants: twenty-five young members under the age of thirty-five and twenty-five adult members holding organizational responsibilities. As in the school context, the process was structured around cycles of participatory action research and deliberative workshops aimed at identifying shared issues and exploring possible organizational changes. Across both contexts, the IPARD approach combines participatory action research with deliberative practices designed to make visible and discussable the asymmetries that structure intergenerational participation (Wheeler, Shaw & Howard, 2020). Rather than focusing primarily on outcomes or indicators of effectiveness, the analysis concentrates on the quality of participatory processes and on the ways in which voice, recognition and authority are negotiated between young people and adults. The paper discusses empirical materials collected during the pilots, integrating the results of a preliminary survey with qualitative data derived from observation grids used during workshops and from focus groups conducted during the process. Particular attention is devoted to how intergenerational dialogue develops and to the conditions that allow young participants to move from consultation to more substantive forms of participation. By examining two different but methodologically connected experiences, the contribution reflects on the use of IPARD as a tool for fostering intergenerational participation across educational and civic contexts.

This paper presents a service-learning project embedded in a Social and Intercultural Pedagogy course at a Northern Italian university, developed in the framework of the European Homelessness Count (EHC), a multi-city European research initiative on homelessness. The EHC is a coordinated point-in-time count based on the ETHOS Light typology, combining street counts and surveys in services to generate comparable data for evidence-informed housing and social policies at local, national and European levels. In Italy, the project is led academically by the University of Catania, in partnership with fio.PSD, the national federation of organisations working with people experiencing homelessness, which supports methodological adaptation, national training and the connection between municipalities, third-sector organisations and volunteers. For the 2025 wave, Italian participation includes cities such as Brescia, Catania and Milan, within a wider European network of 35 cities.
Within this framework, the service-learning project “A research and solidarity experience on homelessness” engaged students as co-researchers in the Brescia implementation of the EHC. The pedagogical design articulated four interconnected phases: (1) participatory analysis of local needs during course sessions; (2) specialist training on methodological, ethical and communicative aspects of street and service-based data collection; (3) field implementation within multidisciplinary teams during the night street count and in homelessness services; and (4) structured debriefing, reflective learning diaries and co-organisation of a public seminar on homelessness. Students were thus positioned not as passive trainees but as active contributors to a European research process with direct relevance for democratic citizenship and social justice, as the data inform policy debates on severe adult marginality and housing exclusion.
Drawing on project documentation, classroom debriefings and students’ reflective diaries, the paper analyses learning outcomes along three dimensions. First, in terms of epistemic and critical awareness, students report a shift from individualised and moralising explanations of homelessness towards structural and intersectional understandings, linking personal biographies to social dimensions, as labour precarity, welfare retrenchment, migration trajectories and housing market dynamics. Second, at the relational and ethical level, students describe the development of intercultural communication skills, a heightened sensitivity to vulnerability in public space, and a more nuanced grasp of privacy and emotional boundaries in research encounters. Third, regarding professional and methodological competencies, the experience strengthened their capacity to engage in community assessment, to use standardised research tools in real-world contexts and to work collaboratively within complex welfare networks.
The analysis suggests that participation in an internationally coordinated research project such as the EHC can function as a powerful service-learning device for cultivating democratic competencies in higher education. By combining rigorous research tasks with civic engagement, and by situating students within translocal partnerships between universities, NGOs and public services, the project fosters transformative learning processes and supports the formation of socially responsible professionals committed to social justice and inclusive citizenship.

This study draws on the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC) developed by the Council of Europe, which conceptualises democratic citizenship as a set of values, attitudes, skills, and knowledge necessary for participating effectively in democratic societies. Within this framework, democratic education requires learning environments that enable students to engage critically with social issues, collaborate with others, and reflect on their responsibilities toward communities. In this view, educational approaches that actively engage students in addressing real social challenges – such as Service-Learning (SL) – have been identified as promising pathways for fostering democratic citizenship.

The paper presents the results of a multi-case study analysis examining how university SL practices contribute to the development of democratic competencies, a sense of community responsibility, and awareness of systemic social challenges. The study analyses six SL projects implemented in three higher education institutions in Ukraine: Sumy State University, Ukrainian Catholic University, and Dnipro University.

The selected cases represent diverse disciplinary contexts, including medicine, entrepreneurship and digital business, cultural studies, clinical psychology, electrical engineering, and finance. The projects analysed include the following courses: “Child Mental Health Support” and “Entrepreneurship and Digital Business Communications” (Sumy State University); “Communities of Memory” and “Scientific and Psychoeducational Practice” (Ukrainian Catholic University); and “Energy Management Systems” and “Personal Finances” (Dnipro University). Despite their disciplinary diversity, all projects integrate academic learning with community engagement activities addressing concrete social needs during wartime, while encouraging students’ active participation in community life.

The research adopts a qualitative multi-case study methodology designed to document and analyse innovative SL practices in higher education. Data were collected using a structured case study protocol including teacher interviews, standardized case descriptions, and documentation of pedagogical practices. Each case was analysed using a shared analytical framework focusing on key dimensions such as learning objectives, forms of community engagement, student participation, and perceived educational outcomes. In addition, a rating tool for identifying good practices in SL was applied to assess the pedagogical quality and transformative potential of the initiatives.

The analysis explores how participation in SL projects contributes to the development of competences outlined in the RFCDC, particularly those related to civic-mindedness, responsibility, critical understanding of social issues, cooperation, and engagement with diversity. Particular attention is given to how students interact with community actors, reflect on social problems, and experience collective action as a meaningful form of democratic participation.

By presenting comparative insights across the six case studies, the paper contributes to the debate on the role of SL in fostering democratic competencies in higher education. The findings highlight the potential of SL to create participatory learning environments where students can experience democratic processes in practice, while also identifying key pedagogical challenges and opportunities for integrating democratic education into university curricula.

For Service Learning to be introduced into schools and established as a pedagogical approach capable of supporting and enhancing the development of students’ knowledge and skills through their involvement in active citizenship and social participation, it is necessary to train teachers in Service Learning (L. Cadei, D. Simeone, 2022). In particular, an analysis of the literature on the in-service training of teachers in the pedagogical approach of Service Learning reveals numerous practices and experiences linked to pre-service teacher training; initiatives aimed at in-service training, whilst present, are less established in systematic terms (Bornatici & Zini, 2025). It is from this challenge – to train teachers in Service Learning – that the project ‘Service Learning: together by a MOOC’ was born. To make the training ‘sustainable’ in terms of time (reducing travel) and costs whilst ensuring the quality of the processes, CREMIT devised the BLEC Model (Rivoltella & Modenini, 2012), an intervention model whose structural features are Blended learning (Graham et al., 2013; Kaleta et al., 2007), E-tivity (Salmon, 2002) and Coaching (Rivoltella, 2006; Ferrari & Triacca, 2020). The use of a blended solution involves designing courses delivered partly in person and partly remotely, employing different teaching methods; e-tivities are small activities that punctuate the course’s progression; the key element of the model is the coaching mechanism, namely the presence throughout the course of an expert whose role lies halfway between that of a tutor and that of a consultant, from whom an external perspective and guidance are sought. Four pillars guided the design of the programme: designing SL according to M.N. Tapia’s model (M.N. Tapia, 2006); enabling teachers to foster the learning of both subject-specific and cross-curricular skills, with a view to developing citizenship; revitalising communities of teaching practice; and raising the profile of implemented projects so that they become examples of good practice. The programme is structured around six thematic modules, which cover all the stages that characterise the service learning process: analysis of the context, the local area and its needs; programme design; implementation and execution; documentation and evaluation. In addition, the modules explore how teaching methods evolve within service learning pathways, offering pedagogical approaches to support projects and examining the contribution that digital technology can make. Based on data collected from the monitoring system (initial questionnaire N=147, final questionnaire N=64, analysis of projects and documentation), this paper aims to discuss the training model developed across two different cohorts. In particular, it will focus on teachers’ representations of SL and on the training outcomes of the support provided for the design, implementation and documentation of the programme. In addition, the paper aims to describe how the project led to the development of a self-paced MOOC (Ferrari & Triacca, 2023; Ferrari & Merigo, 2026) as a tool for fostering a culture of SL within a Community of Practice framework (Wenger, 1999), which currently involves 136 participants.