Conference Program

This study analyzes the process of pedagogical and structural transformation at the Dante-Carducci Institute in Piacenza, with a specific focus on the Carducci branch. Set in an urban context of over 103,000 inhabitants with high migratory density, the Carducci site has historically contended with marked sociocultural prejudice. This phenomenon led local families to systematically prefer the Dante site, resulting in de facto segregation and the formation of classes with a high percentage of non-Italian speakers and widespread economic marginalization (Sandri 2019). This dynamic long hindered the heterogeneity necessary for truly effective and inclusive educational action.

To address this, beginning in the 2023-24 academic year, the institute introduced a new organizational model aimed at moving beyond the fixed-classroom system. In its place, disciplinary and thematic learning environments were established (Armenakis, et al., 1993; Biondi, Borri, Tosi, 2016; Marcarini 2016). In this paradigm, teachers remain in specific specialized spaces while students transition between classrooms at the end of each period. This physical movement is interpreted not as a mere transition, but as a strategic opportunity for attentional recovery and the promotion of individual autonomy. The reconfiguration involved creating innovative spaces, including the Biblòh library network (biblioteche in rete) and the Habitat multi-space (Imms, Kvan, 2022), designed to meet Special Educational Needs (Bisogni Educativi Speciali - BES) and consolidate a multicultural ethics of responsibility.

The efficacy of this experimentation was monitored through the three-year longitudinal study "The Student's Voice" (Grion, Cook-Sather, 2013; Quaglia, Corso, 2014). Adopting a qualitative research approach (Mertens, 2014; Trinchero, 2015; Jones, Smith, 2016), the study integrated an annual 21-item questionnaire (Marcarini 2023) and a case study based on monthly focus groups. These groups involved approximately 50 students in leadership roles (Apri-fila and Assistenti), establishing a structured space for dialogue where student feedback directly informed didactic and educational adjustments.

By the end of the three-year period, results confirmed the success of the initiative: enrollment increased from 120 to 143 for the 2025/26 academic year, fostering more equi-heterogeneous classes and signaling a progressive overcoming of territorial prejudices. Although perceived well-being improved, operational challenges persist, such as resistance from some staff (particularly support teachers) and logistical difficulties regarding backpack management due to the lack of lockers.

In conclusion, the Carducci school experience, functioning as a "permanent construction site" (cantiere permanente) of innovation, demonstrates that structural spatial change is an essential prerequisite for educational equity (Woolner, 2010; Barrett et al., 2015). Transforming the school into a lived democratic space allows the student voice to be valued as a pivotal element for defining both didactic and spatial practices (Woolner, 2010; Barrett et al., 2015).

In recent years, the school library has increasingly been reinterpreted as a “third learning space” (Elmborg, 2011; Raffaele, 2021), capable of complementing classroom environments and supporting more flexible, meaningful and participatory forms of teaching and learning. Rather than functioning solely as repositories of books, libraries can operate as educational infrastructures where reading promotion, autonomous exploration, collaborative learning and information literacy intersect. In this perspective, the school library may contribute to the development of reading literacy, information and media literacy, critical thinking, and social and civic competences, while fostering active and responsible citizenship and participation in democratic life (IFLA/UNESCO, 2025). As a more open and participatory educational environment, it may also support school well-being (Merga, 2022) and create pedagogical conditions for more active forms of student participation and agency (Williams, 2017). In this way, the school library can enrich learning environments and support forms of educational innovation that extend beyond traditional classroom settings.

This renewed interest in school libraries emerges in a context marked by two closely related trends. On the one hand, research highlights a decline in reading for pleasure among children and young people (Bone et al., 2025; Clark et al., 2024; OECD, 2021). On the other hand, recent international and national large-scale assessments reveal a broader decrease in reading literacy and performance (INVALSI, 2025; Mullis et al., 2023; NCES, 2023; OECD, 2023). Within this scenario, school libraries are increasingly considered strategic environments for sustaining reading practices, fostering engagement with texts and strengthening students’ literacy development.

Studies conducted both in Italy and internationally have highlighted the positive educational impact of school libraries. A growing body of research shows that well-developed school libraries are associated with higher academic achievement and improved reading outcomes (Lance & Kachel, 2018; Marzoli & Papa, 2019). At the same time, the literature suggests that the mere presence of a library is not sufficient: its educational potential depends largely on how it is integrated into teaching practices and into the broader organisational life of the school (IFLA/UNESCO, 2025).

This paper presents the results of a national survey conducted within the research project Avanguardie Biblioeducative, promoted by INDIRE in collaboration with the Italian network of innovative school libraries “Biblòh”. The survey involved more than 6,800 respondents, including school leaders and teachers from schools across the Italian education system, and aimed to explore how school libraries are currently organised, perceived and used within everyday school practices.

The findings indicate a generally positive perception of the school library as a learning environment capable of supporting teaching and learning. However, the data also reveal that its integration into everyday teaching practices remains uneven and often dependent on organisational conditions, institutional support and teacher engagement.

By providing empirical evidence on the current condition of school libraries in Italy, the study contributes to the discussion on how schools can renew their learning environments and strengthen reading practices. Supporting school libraries as structured learning spaces may represent an important step towards richer educational environments and greater student engagement with reading.

The right of children and adolescents to actively participate in processes that concern them is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, yet in hospital settings it remains among the least practised. Research conducted in Italy shows that the right of minors to express opinions and preferences regarding clinical decisions that affect them still represents one of the least developed areas in hospital practice, compared to rights related to protection and family presence, which record significantly higher levels of implementation (Bisogni et al., 2015). At the international level, the literature highlights how the involvement of minors tends to remain symbolic: children are consulted but rarely manage to meaningfully influence decision-making processes, partly due to the tendency of adults to protect them from difficult choices (Teela et al., 2023). At the same time, meaningful participation of children in decisions that concern them produces concrete and documented benefits: it reduces anxiety, increases cooperation with clinical procedures and improves treatment adherence (Council of Europe, 2024).

To address this gap, ActionAid Italia — within the European project Empowering Young Patients (EYP, CERV programme, 2025–2026) — is coordinating the co-design of a Charter for the Right to Participation of Hospitalised Children. The tool aims to translate principles and operational recommendations into a shared document, built through a multi-level participatory process: Communities of Practice with interprofessional practitioners, a validation questionnaire on the draft submitted to 150 professionals and stakeholders, and a final laboratory that will involve the direct participation of hospitalised children and peers with previous experience of hospitalisation or involved in the project's educational activities. The Charter will then be presented to Italian and European institutional decision-makers.

The analytical framework adopted is Laura Lundy's model (2007), which articulates participation through four interdependent dimensions: Space (safe places and times for expression), Voice (the effective possibility of expressing opinions and needs), Audience (adults willing and able to listen) and Influence (the possibility that listening produces real effects on decisions). This model guided the analysis of the three main phases of the care pathway — diagnosis, hospitalisation and off-therapy — across different developmental age groups. The empirical work was developed in dialogue with practitioners from the Paediatric Oncology ward of the Policlinico Gemelli in Rome, whose contribution has informed both the analytical phase and the definition of the Charter's priorities.

The results show that participatory practices exist and produce positive effects, but remain tied to individual sensitivity rather than a systemic approach. The setting — language, spatial arrangements, coherence among professionals — emerges as an active variable in care, capable of supporting or hindering listening. Participation is recognised as an ethical value, but not yet as a structured organisational competence. These are the knots that the Charter aims to untangle, offering a shared language and common tools to all actors within the hospital system.

In many contemporary school systems, student participation is formally recognised yet often confined to representative bodies with limited influence on decision-making. Student councils frequently operate within adult-dominated decision-making structures, limiting students’ real influence on school governance and learning processes (Sousa & Ferreira, 2024; Fielding, 2013; Hope 2012a; Lundy & Cook-Sather, 2016). Many school-based participation mechanisms remain anchored in representative models that grant students marginal decision-making authority.

This paper examines how some democratic schools experiment with organisational and pedagogical arrangements that challenge these limits. It draws on preliminary findings from an ongoing comparative doctoral research project “RE-DE-PART - Reimagining Democratic Participation”, which investigates the organisational, pedagogical and relational configurations under which students’ participation can move beyond symbolic representation and become a meaningful component of school governance. Drawing on three school cases, the study explores the conditions that enable student influence and the transferability of high-intensity democratic practices to Italian public schooling.

Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative, comparative and participatory design (Yin, 2018; Pastori, 2017; Mantovani, 2007), combining multi-site case studies in three upper-secondary schools (France, Italy, the Netherlands). The selected cases represent distinct configurations of democratic schooling: deliberative co-management within a public experimental lycée; a sociocratic, self-directed democratic school; and a public school engaged in structural innovation (DADA model) but characterised by predominantly representative participation. Reflexive research tools, such as participatory video (Colucci, 2016; Lunch et al., 2006), are employed to position students as epistemic agents documenting and critically rethinking participation. Within this design, the Italian case study includes an intergenerational co-design component aimed at reinterpreting insights from the two highly participatory schools to inform guidelines for democratic school governance.

The literature review on highly participatory schools identifies three interconnected organisational and pedagogical configurations:

1. Governance infrastructures and devices: weekly assemblies, school councils, justice committees, sociocratic circles, and shared decision-making bodies that redistribute deliberative authority and formalise students’ equal status in decision processes (Aquarone, 2021; Hecht, 2012; Hope, 2012b; Gray & Chanoff, 1986; Morrison, 2024; Gawlicz & Millei, 2022), thus embedding democracy across school life.
2. Curricular pathways: negotiated curricula, flexible timetables, and self-directed learning environments that align decision-making power with epistemic agency in learning (De Cesare, 2024; Grey, 1986; Korkmaz and Erden, 2014).
3. Values and pedagogical foundations: pedagogical and governance devices grounded in the principles affirmed within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989), particularly participation and equality as fundamental rights.

This findings suggest that democratic governance is not merely a participatory decision-making structure but a core pedagogical architecture through which democracy is learned through practice, echoing Dewey’s conception of democracy as a form of life (Dewey, 1916). However, even in highly participatory settings, power asymmetries persist. Although often criticized for not maximizing traditional academic outcomes, democratic education instead redefines success in terms of justice, well-being, and meaningful participation. When critically and contextually reinterpreted, these practices may inform hybrid configurations of school democracy that combine representation with more direct forms of participation, helping reimagine Italian schooling as a more democratic space.

School Participatory Budgeting (SPB) has recently emerged as an innovative practice aimed at fostering democratic participation within educational institutions. Inspired by the broader experience of participatory budgeting (PB), first developed in the late 1980s in Porto Alegre, SPB adapts the idea of involving citizens in budgeting decisions to the school environment by enabling students to deliberate on and decide the allocation of a portion of school resources. In recent years, several Italian schools have experimented with SPB processes in which students propose, develop and vote on projects financed through a share of the school budget.

While SPB is often framed primarily as a pedagogical tool for civic education, this paper argues that its relevance lies in its potential to reshape democratic practices within schools. SPB should be understood more fundamentally as a laboratory/experiment for rethinking democratic governance in educational institutions, challenging existing forms of school governance and democratic practice. By combining deliberation in working groups with final universal voting assemblies, SPB creates a structured process through which students can engage directly with collective decision-making and the management of shared resources.

However, more than procedural design or structural conditions, the effective implementation of SPB depends on the presence of a participatory mindset within the school community. Schools are typically characterized by hierarchical organizational structures, limited decision-making autonomy and institutional cultures in which participation often remains formal or symbolic. In such contexts, participatory initiatives risk being reduced to episodic exercises that have little impact on actual decision-making processes.

Drawing on evidence from the Erasmus+ project School Participatory Budget: A Tool to Foster School Democracy and from more than ten case studies in Italy, this paper explores these tensions and examines the conditions under which SPB can move beyond symbolic participation toward a more stable integration into school governance. The analysis suggests that the success of SPB depends fundamentally on the willingness of school actors—students, teachers and school leaders—to reconsider established roles and to recognize students as legitimate participants in collective decision-making. In this sense, SPB should not be understood simply as a technical tool, but as a catalyst for developing a participatory culture capable of supporting more democratic forms of school governance.

The integration of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Civic Citizenship Education (CCE) is increasingly proposed as a response to the “post‑truth” crisis (Farkas & Schou, 2024) and the weakening of democratic resilience (European Council, 2023). Contemporary approaches to CCE (e.g., Biesta, 2021; Westheimer & Kahne, 2022) and ESD (e.g., UNESCO, 2020; Macintyre et al., 2025) treat democracy not merely as a subject to be taught but as an active learning principle embedded in school practice. This shift moves the focus from “learning about democracy” to “democracy as a learning principle” (Fielding, 2012; Cook‑Sather, 2020), positioning schools as spaces for epistemic agency (Nieminen & Ketonen, 2019). Nevertheless, despite the need for these two agendas to work synergistically such integration remains insufficiently realized in everyday school practice (Macintyre et al., 2025).

In the German context in particular, it can be observed that schools are difficult to change (Buchna, 2019). Efforts to substantially embed CCE and ESD in the curriculum often remain at the project level, running alongside regular lessons rather than being fully integrated. One way to overcome this issue is to develop the profile of entire year groups in which a transformative approach is consistently implemented.

This contribution presents research in which we examine this approach in more detail through a case study. The Futur-3 profile of a Berlin grammar school systematically embeds elements of transformative education, such as self-directed learning, extracurricular cooperation and a focus on sustainability issues, throughout the entire secondary school period. Our research explores how this profiling helps to prevent 'hollow participation' and establish democratic as well as sustainable practices. Thus, our research contributes to addressing the question of which specific school conditions must be met to enable democratic renewal (European Council, 2023).

We examined which levers are pushing transformative learning by combining CCE and ESD using a triangulated approach involving: a quantitative baseline study of the entire Year 10 cohort (n = 120), qualitative interviews with pupils in the Futur-3 profile (n = 32), and narrative interviews with the teachers who developed the Futur-3 profile. Our data allowed us to identify three levers: pedagogical, organisational and relational conditions. Project-based learning and interdisciplinary problem solving (e.g. climate justice) are particularly effective in strengthening political self-efficacy and resistance to populism when designed to be deliberative (cf. Ahmed, 2004). This fosters learners' ability to analyse complex problems, think critically and develop collective solutions — key competencies for democratic participation and sustainable development. The second lever is organisational in nature. Structurally embedded co-determination can foster democratic attitudes and transformative agency (Lund & Vestøl, 2021). This enables pupils to exert influence both formally and practically, thereby enhancing the quality of the democratic experience in everyday school life. The third lever concerns the relational level. A teaching culture that is relationally anchored fosters a sense of belonging and efficacy, ideally strengthening the willingness to engage in democratic participation and sustainable action (Biesta, 2021).