Conference Program

According to the voices of the students involved, can an intercultural peer mentoring project foster greater coherence between schools and their democratic and transformative vocation?
This paper presents a case study conducted in a high school located in a public housing neighbourhood on the outskirts of Rome, characterised by significant economic and social hardship. The school, attended by approximately 2000 students across two campuses, is often portrayed as an “island” within the local context because of the academic outcomes achieved by its highest-performing students and its positioning in private agency rankings. At the same time, it is marked by deep contradictions: many students living in the neighbourhood do not reach graduation, and a substantial number of students without Italian citizenship, whose presence is frequently problematised by both teachers and peers, leave school early, in continuity with patterns observed at the national level.

Within this context, following a decision by the collegial bodies and the establishment of an “Intercultural commission”, the school launched an experimental intercultural peer mentoring project. The initiative involves enrolled students in welcoming newly arrived peers, supporting them during the initial phase of school insertion, and listening to their concerns, which are understood as epistemic resources for rethinking school practices, organisational arrangements, and everyday routines. The project aims to make the institution more accessible, dialogical, and responsive to students’ subjectivities, while also addressing school dropout. For the participants, and with broader implications for the institution, the experience constituted a space for personal commitment and for the development of competences necessary for participation in democratic contexts and institutions (Barrett, 2021), thus functioning as a device for learning for democracy.

The study seeks to understand the meanings that young participants attribute to their peer education experiences and the forms their participation takes within an intercultural peer mentoring project. Adopting a perspective attentive to student voice, student participation was examined as a research object in its own right and analysed in light of Fielding’s (2012) patterns of partnership (see also Grion & Cook-Sather, 2013).

Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative, ethnographically oriented approach (Pastori, 2017), combining observation and self-observation tools based on trifocal grids related to democratic culture competences (the related outcomes are discussed elsewhere) with interviews, logbooks, backtalk, meeting records, and focus groups involving teachers, the project team, school leadership staff, and, most importantly, the young participants. The textual corpus was analysed through Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019; Pagani, 2020).

The findings show how the project simultaneously functioned as a space for learning democratic competences (learning for democracy) and, under specific organisational and relational conditions, reconfigured participation itself as the organising principle of the educational experience (democracy for learning), while also revealing tensions between symbolic recognition and actual decision-making power, as well as the ambivalent role of adults as both facilitators and gatekeepers of participation.

Over the past two decades, student participation has gained prominence in educational research and is widely recognised as a key condition for promoting school democracy, youth agency, and civic development (Sousa & Ferreira, 2024). The literature highlights the positive impacts of valuing students’ voices on their holistic development, the improvement of educational relationships, and the functioning of school institutions, with benefits extending to teachers and the school community (Biddle, 2019; Cook-Sather, 2020; Geurts et al., 2024).

Within the European context of decentralisation and strengthened school autonomy, school governing bodies stand out as formal spaces for student participation in democratic governance. They bring together different educational actors, yet vary in their degree of formalisation, competences, and decision-making power, depending on political and social contexts (OECD, 2024).

Persistent ambiguities in the implementation of student participation within school decision-making bodies are identified: representation tends to be restricted to secondary students; power remains centralised in principals and teachers; and there are limitations to the deliberative potential of collegial bodies, as these are often reduced to formal or symbolic dynamics (Andersson, 2019; Elemen, 2015; Kaba, 2001).

In this context, this communication presents a literature review examining how recent research has conceptualised and problematised student participation in formal school governance bodies, as well as the proposals that have emerged for consolidating it as an effective democratic practice. The review maps the literature and synthesizes the recommendations put forward by these studies, addressing the need to deepen knowledge on effective forms of student participation (Mager & Nowak, 2012).

Publications from 2010 onwards were selected from journals indexed in Scopus, Web of Science, and ERIC to ensure an international perspective. The Portuguese Open Access Scientific Repository network (RCAAP) was also considered to include national and local contexts. Publications in English, Portuguese, and Spanish were included, covering empirical and theoretical studies on student participation in formal school governance bodies, with explicit attention to decision-making processes. The analysis is based on a critical and comparative reading, combining thematic coding and categorisation with strategies of connection (Maxwell, 2009) to identify conceptual patterns, analytical tensions, and recurring limitations in the enactment of student participation.

The results contribute to rethink the current design of school decision-making spaces. These are understood as social spaces of democratic governance, where power relations emerge and are contested (Sarmento et al., 2007), and from which it is possible to question the school form (Vincent et al., 2001). It starts from the assumption that “participatory devices” (Sarmento et al., 2007) hold the potential to counteract the rigidity of a school structure historically oriented towards control and conformity (Lima & Afonso, 1990).

The aim is to understand how spaces of silence can be transformed into spaces of voice, moving beyond symbolic representation and enabling forms of effective student participation, thereby contributing to the panel’s central question: can schools become a site of democratic renewal, and under what pedagogical, organisational and relational conditions?

While the right of children to participate is enshrined in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), a significant gap remains between theoretical recognition and daily practice. The “Together” methodology, developed by SOS Villaggi dei Bambini in the framework of a EU co-funded project, is designed to transform the right of children and young people to participate from a theoretical principle into a concrete practice within public decision-making processes. The project specifically focuses on strengthening the capacity of children and youth—including those in precarious family situations or alternative care—to influence decisions that affect their lives and local communities.

The methodology is rooted in international legal standards. A core tool used is Roger Hart’s Ladder of Participation, which helps distinguish between "seeming" involvement (manipulation, decoration, tokenism) and "meaningful" participation. The methodology also incorporates the Lundy Model to structure how children and youth are provided with space, voice, audience, and influence in public spheres.

This approach aims to improve the capacity of children, young people, and the professionals supporting them to work in partnership with policy-makers. It seeks to ensure that youth can influence public decisions that impact their lives, moving from mere consultation to active co-design.

Aside from adult supervisors, the methodology relies on two primary levels of youth engagement. The first one is the involvement of peer trainers (aged 18–24), young people who, after receiving specialized training, propose and directly manage workshops for their peers. They act as a bridge between professional facilitators and younger participants, ensuring the language and activities remain relevant and engaging. The second one is the protagonism of workshop participants (aged 11–17), who engage in territorial workshops to deepen their knowledge of children’s rights and improve their awareness of how to influence public policy even when still underaged. The peer-to-peer workshops typically consist of six sessions, guiding participants from understanding their rights to meeting with adults to deliver their messages.

This approach offers unique benefits over traditional adult-led models. Participants often feel freer to express themselves when the facilitators are close to them in age, reducing the hierarchical pressure typical of adult-youth relationships. Also, they have the chance to evolve from "beneficiaries" into "active citizens," practicing participation as a skill. It fosters intergenerational dialogue, proving that young people are competent interlocutors capable of making public policies more inclusive and effective.

“Together” engages children in ongoing dialogue with local, regional and national institutions to promote the creation of effective and shared synergies. This dialogue is, indeed, the culminating moment where children meet with institutional representatives to propose concrete solutions.

Ultimately, "Together" demonstrates that involving young people generates agency, empowerment, and more inclusive public policies that better reflect the needs of all citizens. The methodology's practical insights, based on the feedbacks and experience on the field, are summarized in a vademecum for adults, identifying six pillars for effective participation.

This paper addresses adultcentrism in education by weaving together a critical theoretical framework, contemporary pedagogical contributions, and an empirical case study situated within an Italian public Montessori primary school. Adultcentrism – understood as the structural and symbolic primacy of adult perspectives, norms, and power in shaping children’s lives – continues to permeate formal schooling, often legitimising asymmetrical authority and limiting children’s agency. Closely intertwined with this is the legacy of “black pedagogy,” theorised by Katharina Rutschky (2015/1977) and further elaborated by Alice Miller (2007a/1979; 2007b/1980), which exposes authoritarian, disciplinary, and moralising practices embedded in educational traditions. Although often subtle in contemporary schooling, these dynamics persist through evaluation regimes, behavioural control, and “epistemic injustice” that privilege adult power over children’s lived experience.
Building on the childist and anti-adultist approach and its most recent contributions (Biswas at al., 2024; Liebel and Meade, 2025; Tripi, 2025), the paper highlights pedagogical “counter-movements” capable of challenging adultcentrism within school institutions. Childism emphasises children’s protagonism, intergenerational dialogue, and institutional reflexivity as key strategies to unsettle adult monopolies of interpretation and decision-making. Overcoming implicit power dynamics in schooling requires not merely methodological adjustments but a transformation of educational stance: practices such as shared rule-making, negotiated curricula, participatory assessment, and the cultivation of aesthetic and expressive spaces emerge as concrete modalities for redistributing power and recognising children as epistemic subjects.
In this context, the professional experience of Pia Burei Bozzini (1939–2024), a primary school teacher, trainer at the Opera Nazionale Montessori and expert practicienne trained in close collaboration with Arno Stern, represents a significant example of how methodological contaminations can generate original and authentic educational practices, rooted in the professional biography of the educator. The case exemplifies a response to the need to unsettle sedimented educational hierarchies and to reconfigure entrenched adult–child power relations within the school context.
The Closlieu, a dispositif conceived by Stern (Stern, 1959/1966) as a necessary alternative to school-based art education, is grounded in safeguarding the “Play of painting” (Stern, 2011/2013) within a protected, structured space removed from judgment, evaluation, and interpretation. The introduction of this expressive setting into the Montessori primary school “Balilla Paganelli” in Cinisello Balsamo (MI) constitutes a consciously non-orthodox choice with respect to both pedagogical approaches, motivated by the belief in a meaningful connection between them. On the one hand, Montessori education already challenges adultcentrism through prepared environments, auto-education, and respect for the child’s rhythm. On the other hand, the Closlieu radicalises this stance by suspending curricular intentionality altogether, offering an experience where expression is decoupled from performance and assessment. Within the institutional setting, this dispositif functions as a micro-political space that interrupts dominant logics of productivity and normalisation, allowing children to inhabit school differently.
The paper argues that overcoming adultcentrism requires creating “protected heterotopias” within schools, alongside cultivating an adult posture of ethical restraint, attentive presence, and institutional self-critique. The integration of the Closlieu within a Montessori public school illustrates how this hybridisation can foster transformative possibilities for reconfiguring power, voice, and recognition in everyday schooling.

In contemporary post-democratic contexts, democratic institutions formally persist while meaningful participation is hollowed out. Schools reflect this condition: student representation often operates symbolically, participatory routines remain procedural, and performance-oriented cultures marginalize dialogic engagement. The key question, therefore, is not only whether schools teach democracy, but whether they are organised democratically.

Grounded in the Student Voice framework (Cook-Sather, 2020; Welty & Lundy, 2013) and democratic education traditions inspired by Dewey (2000), this paper presents findings from La scuola siamo noi! (“We Are the School!”), developed within the PNRR-MUSA initiative (2023–2025) in three upper secondary schools in Milan. Conceived as a participatory research pathway, the project positioned students and teachers as co-inquirers, recognising students as epistemic agents and legitimate stakeholders in school improvement and governance (Pastori & Pagani, 2025).

In its first year, an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) combined a survey on school climate, voice, and participation (2023/24) with eleven focus groups aimed at deepening students’ experiences of recognition, influence, and marginalisation. In the second year (2024/25), mixed student–teacher groups engaged in participatory research pathways to co-develop and experiment with proposals for school improvement, transforming the project into a democratic laboratory.

Findings reveal tensions between formal participatory structures and students’ limited impact on decision-making. Participation remains largely consultative, constrained by bureaucratic and hierarchical cultures. Yet the research process itself functioned as a democratic micro-practice, fostering relational shifts, organisational experimentation, and enhanced agency.

Democratic renewal in schools requires more than fostering civic competences (Learning for Democracy); it demands organisational reconfiguration so that democracy becomes an organising principle of school life (Democracy for Learning) (Dewey, 2000; Gollob et al., 2010).

This contribution, situated within the framework of ongoing doctoral research, proposes an ecosystemic model of Global Citizenship Education (GCE) oriented toward the transformation of school practices and the construction of enabling environments. The objective is to overcome the conceptual ambiguities that characterize the international debate (Oxley & Morris, 2013; UNESCO, 2015) and to offer a theoretical-operational framework capable of guiding schools and teachers in the design of authentic, sustainable, and institutionally rooted participatory experiences. Indeed, in the absence of a solid epistemological foundation, civic education risks being reduced to a formal device or an isolated disciplinary content, devoid of any effective transformative impact.

The proposed model integrates four theoretical traditions rarely brought into dialogue: Dewey’s educational pragmatism, Makiguchi’s value-creating pedagogy, Nussbaum’s Capability Approach, and Kolb’s experiential learning cycle. This convergence allows for the reconfiguration of citizenship not as a static set of competences, but as a continuous formative experience built through practices of participation, reflection, and shared responsibility. The aim is to outline a theoretical framework capable of configuring GCE as a “pedagogy of the gaze” oriented toward the deconstruction of egocentric and nationalistic perspectives, re-configuring it as a process of human development, democratic participation, and social value creation (Bertolini, 1988).

The model is organized according to a logic of progressive scalability, which allows educational institutions to implement GCE as a multi-level process. On a didactic level, this translates into participatory activities such as micro-deliberations, service learning, local area investigations, and practices of intercultural cooperation. On a reflective level, it introduces devices such as civic portfolios, narrative rubrics, and learning diaries, which support processes of critical awareness and personal agency. On an institutional level, the model is rooted in the Whole School Approach (Henderson & Tilbury, 2004), promoting a systemic transformation that involves curriculum, governance, educational relationships, and collaboration with the community. From an evaluative standpoint, the model adopts the twenty descriptors of the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (Council of Europe, 2018) as an interpretative structure to orient assessment toward a formative and process-oriented dimension. This allows for the monitoring of not only outcomes but, above all, the developmental processes of values, attitudes, and competences linked to democratic citizenship. Each level represents an expansion of the school's capacity to configure itself as a democratic ecosystem, in which agency, participation, and reflexivity are sustained by coherent didactic practices, evaluative tools, and organizational structures.

The emerging implications highlight how dialogic and participatory approaches can reconfigure the school as a lived democratic space, where the agency of students is supported by reflective, collaborative teaching practices open to the world. In this perspective, the role of teachers assumes a crucial significance: through a professionalism oriented toward research, the care of relationships, and shared design, they become co-constructors of enabling contexts. This vision aligns with the perspective of “porous didactics” (Tarozzi & Moser, 2025), which interprets the school as an open, dynamic institution interconnected with global challenges.

Youth political participation has long been considered a crucial component of democratic
stability. Habits of civic and political engagement developed during adolescence often
persist into adulthood, shaping long-term patterns of participation. However, a large body
of research suggests that younger generations increasingly participate less in conventional
political activities than previous cohorts (Flanagan & Levine, 2010; Kitanova, 2020; Sloam &
Henn, 2019; Suni & Mietola, 2023; Weiss, 2020). Declining trust in political institutions and
limited engagement with traditional political organizations are frequently interpreted as
signs of a broader crisis of representative democracy (Bessant, 2004; Furlong & Cartmel,
2012; Foa & Mounk, 2016). At the same time, scholars have pointed out that young people
continue to engage with politics through alternative forms such as digital activism, issue-
based campaigns, or community initiatives (Guzman Grassi et al., 2024). While these
patterns are well documented quantitatively, much less attention has been devoted to how
young people themselves explain political disengagement.
This paper addresses that gap by exploring how final-year secondary school students
understand and interpret political disengagement among young people. Focusing on this
specific age group is particularly relevant because they stand on the threshold of gaining
formal political rights. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected through twelve
focus groups conducted in four major Croatian cities (Zagreb, Rijeka, Split, and Osijek). A
total of 90 students participated, representing three different educational tracks: grammar
schools, four-year vocational programmes, and three-year vocational programmes. Focus
groups were carried out in school settings and followed a semi-structured protocol
addressing political participation, political efficacy, youth engagement, and perceptions of
politics. The data were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Joffe, 2012)
combining deductive and inductive coding to identify recurring patterns in participants’
explanations of political disengagement.
The results reveal five key themes through which students interpret youth political non-
participation: socialization, cynicism and distrust, distance from politics, perceived negative
consequences of political engagement, and feelings of powerlessness. Participants
frequently attribute disengagement to socialization processes within families, schools, and
media environments that frame politics as conflictual and negative. Widespread cynicism
toward political actors and institutions, often associated with corruption and unfulfilled
promises, further contributes to distrust in the political system. Politics is also commonly
perceived as distant from young people’s everyday lives and interests, which reduces its
perceived relevance. In addition, students describe political engagement as socially risky,
potentially leading to stigma and interpersonal conflict. Finally, many participants express a

strong sense of political powerlessness, characterized by the belief that young people’s
voices are ignored and that political action rarely produces meaningful change.
Taken together, these findings suggest that youth disengagement should not be interpreted
primarily as apathy or lack of interest. Instead, students describe political disengagement as
a rational response to a political environment perceived as unresponsive, socially risky, and
poorly connected to their everyday experiences. The study contributes to existing research
by highlighting how young people themselves interpret the mechanisms that produce
political distancing, thereby offering new insights into the relationship between political
socialization, political efficacy, and youth engagement.