Conference Program

Teachers’ working conditions are increasingly recognised as a key factor shaping the effectiveness of education systems, as well as students’ learning outcomes and educational inequalities (Hanushek & Rivkin 2012; OECD 2025). While a large body of research has examined institutional features of school systems, growing attention is now being devoted to teachers’ working conditions, professional well-being, and perceived effectiveness (Darling-Hammond 2017). Understanding how teachers interpret the challenges of everyday teaching is crucial for analysing how educational policies and school structures are translated into practice.

Student heterogeneity is a structural feature of contemporary classrooms, encompassing differences in socio-economic background, language, learning needs, and educational trajectories. In Italy, recent policy developments — such as legislation on learning disorders (L. 170/2010) and the extension of the category of Special Educational Needs — have increased institutional attention to diversity in schools, making the management of heterogeneous classrooms a core component of teachers’ professional role. At the same time, research and policy debates often address diversity through specific categories of students rather than considering heterogeneity as a systemic condition of everyday teaching (Ianes et al. 2020).

This paper investigates how classroom composition and organizational conditions shape teachers’ expectations of professional stress and teaching effectiveness. The analysis draws on data from a large survey of Italian teachers (N ≈ 9,500) that includes a factorial survey experiment. Respondents were presented with vignettes describing hypothetical classroom compositions varying across several dimensions: class size (18 vs 24 students), gender composition, presence of students with migrant background, presence of students with specific learning disorders (SLD), and level of family collaboration. In a second stage, an additional organizational factor was introduced: the composition of the teaching staff, distinguishing between classes with a stable teaching team (mostly tenured teachers) and classes with a high presence of substitute teachers. Teachers were asked to evaluate how stressful teaching in the described class would be and how effective they expected their teaching to be.

Results show that teachers generally report moderate expected stress and relatively high confidence in their teaching effectiveness, which aligns with previous research highlighting the cumulative nature of risk and protective factors shaping teachers’ well-being (Zagni et al. 2025). However, both outcomes are significantly shaped by structural and organizational conditions. Larger classes, low family collaboration and instability in the teaching staff substantially increase expected stress and reduce perceived teaching effectiveness. In several cases, organizational features such as the stability of the teaching staff appear to have an impact comparable to, or greater than, the characteristics of students themselves.

These findings suggest that teachers’ professional experience cannot be fully understood by focusing only on student diversity. Instead, the organizational environment in which teachers work plays a crucial role in shaping both professional well-being and expectations of effectiveness. By highlighting the interaction between classroom heterogeneity and school organizational conditions, the paper contributes to current debates on teachers’ working conditions and their implications for school effectiveness and educational inequalities.

This article presents the preliminary findings of a qualitative, exploratory research conducted by an interdisciplinary team comprising sociologists and educators. The study's objective is to analyse the biographical and professional trajectories of participants in the Training Course for Specialization in Support Activities for Pupils with Disabilities (2023-2024 edition), which was organized by the University of Siena.

The research is based on an analysis of the internship reports of the 305 course participants (90% of whom were women). From these texts, it was possible to extract information on their biographical, educational and professional backgrounds and on the reasons that led them to choose to specialize. Other areas taken into consideration were their perception of their professional role, the social representations associated with it and how these could be changed. In particular, the following information can be extracted from the documents collected:

• socio-demographic data, with reference to educational and professional history and a particular focus on motivations, training, profession (jobs held, their duration), and significant events in the individual’s personal history;

• social and individual representations of the profession, significant actors, territorial context;

• expectations regarding one's role as a teacher for inclusive education in the community of reference;

• possible ways of changing critical and/or negative representations of the profession.

The picture that emerges seems to highlight bumpy paths and composite professional identities, an aspect that is well known in the literature (Fondazione Agnelli 2021; Frison et al. 2023a, 2023b; Giaconi et al. 2021; Ianes 2016; Paccagnella 2025). There are frequent cases of professional careers from very different backgrounds: often, in these cases, it is biographical events or institutional opportunities that, in the participants’ accounts, bring them closer to the world of care or lead them to seek greater meaning in their work. The search for economic stability and, even more so, for a work-life balance is also important, especially for those coming from highly flexible and precarious jobs. There are also more linear paths in which teaching is not a “discovery” but an original ambition. Since the sources used are texts created for educational assessment, it should be noted that these may be affected by a bias generated by the intention to enhance one’s own learning outcomes. At the same time, the texts analysed reflect how subjects reconstruct their professional paths, giving them meaning.

Ultimately, life stories are very rich and complex and paint a more nuanced and complex perspective than that presented in the most widespread social representations, according to which being a teacher, especially a teacher for inclusive education, is only a fallback option or an opportunistic choice. Similarly, the picture that emerges from these documents regarding social representations of the profession of teacher for inclusive education is far from obvious, with a fairly widespread rejection of a limited role, of mere support, and therefore of being “second-class”. The analysis, in fact, allows for a better understanding of the relationship between biographical and professional paths on the one hand and social representations of the profession on the other.

Across contemporary education systems, teachers and principals play a decisive role in shaping both the quality and the democratic character of schooling. Research shows that digitalisation has reshaped pedagogical and organisational demands on teachers (Selwyn, 2016) and that digital tools can enhance accessibility, participation, and learning for pupils with special educational needs (SEN) (Eady & Lockyer, 2013; Duque et al., 2024). Yet limited attention has been given to how organisational conditions, particularly school leadership, shape teachers’ digital competence in ways that matter for inclusion, equity, and democratic participation.

This study examines how teachers’ perceptions of school leadership relate to their self‑reported digital competence to support students with SEN. The analysis draws on cross‑sectional data from 285 in‑service teachers enrolled in Swedish special education training programmes, using the SELFIE survey (European Commission, 2025), grounded in the DigCompOrg framework (European Commission, 2022) and complemented with a SEN‑specific digital competence module.

Findings show a consistent and significant positive association between school leadership and teachers’ digital competence in supporting students with SEN, robust after adjusting for teacher collaboration, infrastructure and equipment, and demographic variables. Teacher collaboration contributes positively, aligning with research on collegial cultures (Castaño Muñoz et al., 2023), while the nonsignificant effect of infrastructure reflects the uniformly high digital access in Swedish schools (Munoz et al., 2018).

These results indicate that teachers’ digital competence develops through organisational conditions shaped by school leadership rather than through individual efforts alone. Prior research highlights principals’ roles in setting direction, allocating resources, and fostering innovative pedagogical cultures (Hallinger, 2011; Leithwood et al., 2020; Dexter, 2011). Consistently, teachers who perceive that school leaders articulate a clear digitalisation strategy, involve staff in its development, and support experimentation with technology report higher competence in designing accessible digital learning resources, assessing SEN‑related needs, and promoting participation for all students.

The study contributes to debates on teacher professionalism, working conditions, and school effectiveness by showing that school leadership is more strongly associated with teachers’ SEN‑focused digital competence than material conditions or demographics. This aligns with findings that competence development is most effective when embedded in whole‑school strategies supported by leadership (Joya et al., 2025) and with research emphasising digital competence as essential for inclusive teaching (Cabero‑Almenara et al., 2022; Instefjord & Munthe, 2016).

A further contribution is the link to the democratic mission of schooling. Inclusive digital practices expand participation, communication, and agency for pupils with SEN, dimensions central to democratic education. Digital technologies can strengthen communication, motivation, and engagement (Holmgren, 2024; Mukhtarkyzy et al., 2025), but only when teachers have both competence and organisational support to use them meaningfully. By promoting adaptive instruction, accessible communication, and active involvement, school leaders help ensure that pupils with SEN can exercise their right to equitable and democratic learning opportunities.

Taken together, the findings highlight school leadership as crucial for enabling teachers to translate digitalisation into pedagogically meaningful and democratically oriented practices for pupils with SEN.

Assessing learning is one of the most relevant and contested dimensions of teacher professionalism, as it is shaped by a structural tension between formative and summative functions (Brown, 2019). While the former acts as a regulatory device for teaching and learning, grounded in feedback, co-assessment, and metacognitive practices the latter primarily serves certification and selection purposes (Hattie & Timperley, 2012). International research has widely documented the effectiveness of formative strategies in supporting meaningful and lasting learning, while also highlighting the limitations of an exclusive or distorted use of summative assessment, including its implications for students’ motivation and well-being (Colasanti, 2022; Scipione & Zini, 2025). Despite this broad scientific consensus on the value of formative assessment (Heritage, 2010) many studies show that both teachers’ beliefs and their actual classroom practices remain only partially aligned with this approach, often maintaining a strong connection with summative strategies (Brown, 2004; Pastore, 2020).

Against this theoretical background, the paper analyses data from the “IV insegnanti” survey in order to explore teachers’ declared assessment strategies in the light of two structuring dimensions of the profession: subject area and school level. The underlying assumption is that the combination of disciplinary domain and school level should not be regarded as a mere organizational background, but rather as a factor that shapes both teachers’ conceptions of assessment and their actual practices, thus contributing to the construction of specific assessment cultures.

The analysis focuses on three main areas: teachers’ sense of self-efficacy in assessment and their willingness to engage in professional development on this topic; the functions and purposes they attribute to assessment; and their declared practices, with particular attention to the tools they use, the criteria they adopt for student promotion, and the difficulties they encounter in assessment processes. Through a comparative and multivariate approach, the paper investigates whether, and to what extent, the imbalance between formative and summative functions takes different forms across subject areas (for example, humanities and language studies, scientific subjects, and technical-vocational fields) and across school levels, thereby redefining the relationship between assessment, teaching, and selection.

From this perspective, assessment strategies are not interpreted as a mere repertoire of techniques, but as the expression of pedagogical and cultural principles that orient the ways in which teachers assign value to learning and support, or at times constrain, students’ educational trajectories. The paper ultimately aims to provide empirical evidence on whether, and in which disciplinary and school contexts, practices more consistent with research on formative assessment are becoming consolidated.

This paper investigates primary school teachers who teach mathematics, focusing on the characteristics and specificities of these professional figures and on their crucial role in shaping children’s early relationship with mathematics at the beginning of compulsory schooling. The study is part of the broader research project PRIN 2022 “Coming to terms not only with the pandemic. Mathematics learning loss in primary school: underlying factors and intervention” (pi University of Milano-Bicocca), which examines early difficulties and inequalities in mathematical learning during the first years of primary education.

While much of the existing literature focuses primarily on students’ cognitive abilities through quantitative approaches, this research adopts a mixed-methods perspective and considers the viewpoints of the main actors involved in the educational process - students, teachers, and parents. The contribution presented here specifically focuses on teachers, exploring their professional biographies and their attitudes toward mathematics. Who are the teachers who teach mathematics in primary school? What are the key features of their educational and professional trajectories? And how do they relate to the discipline they teach?

The empirical basis consists of eight focus groups conducted with 55 primary school teachers - 95% of whom are women - in the metropolitan areas of Milan and Naples, complemented by a survey administered to 475 teachers in 2025. The qualitative analysis highlights polarized narratives about mathematics, often framed in terms of “love” or “fear,” rooted in teachers’ own school experiences and in the influence of former teachers. These biographical experiences contribute to shaping teachers’ professional identities and their teaching practices. In several cases, teachers report having been assigned to teach mathematics not by personal choice but due to organizational needs within schools, a factor that may influence their confidence and attitudes toward the subject. Across the focus groups, participants emphasize the importance of teachers’ attitudes in shaping students’ experiences with mathematics. According to the teachers, negative attitudes or anxiety toward the subject may be unintentionally transmitted to students, while enthusiasm, confidence, and pedagogical strategies - such as games, problem-solving activities, and creative approaches - can significantly enhance students’ motivation and learning outcomes.

Survey data further enrich these findings by showing that many teachers recall having experienced difficulties in learning mathematics at school or perceive their past mathematical abilities as average compared to their classmates. Nevertheless, a large proportion of teachers report enjoying teaching mathematics. This suggests that teachers’ relationships with the discipline can evolve throughout their professional trajectories and that teaching mathematics in primary school often involves educators whose attitudes toward the subject have been reshaped through training, teaching practice, and professional experience. Overall, the findings highlight how teachers’ discourses reflect broader cultural narratives about mathematics, gender, and ability, while also underscoring the importance of professional socialization processes and institutional contexts in shaping teaching practices and educational opportunities.

The relationship between schools and families is now recognized as a crucial aspect of educational processes, both for its effects on student learning and well-being and for its role in building more inclusive and cooperative school environments (Epstein, 2001; Stefanski, Valli, & Jacobson, 2016). The literature has long shown that family involvement can be a resource for academic success and the quality of the educational experience, but it has also highlighted that this relationship is never neutral or linear. School-family relationships are in fact marked by ambivalence, divergent expectations, role asymmetries, interpretative conflicts over educational responsibilities, and tensions related to communication, mutual trust, and professional recognition (Hornby & Lafaele, 2011; Epstein, 2018). From this perspective, the partnership between schools and families appears less as a given and more as an unstable balance, continuously negotiated in everyday practices.
Starting from this framework, the contribution takes teachers' attitudes towards their relationship with families as a way for analyzing the quality, tensions, and meanings attributed to this relationship. The underlying hypothesis is that these attitudes reflect not only individual orientations but also organizational conditions, professional cultures, and differentiated social positions.
The analysis of this study is based on a sample of 4,822 teachers surveyed as part of the fourth Survey on the living and working conditions of Italian teachers, who were asked to complete a 15-item Likert scale questionnaire on their attitudes towards their relationship with families. The items were subjected to PCA with varimax rotation, which revealed three main components: a first component of criticality in the school-family relationship, marked by relational difficulties, mistrust, and a perception of parental invasiveness; a second component of shared educational responsibility, which expresses openness to collaboration between teachers, families, and the wider educational community; a third component of delimitation of the teaching role, which refers to a more limited conception of the boundaries of the relationship with families and the educational mandate of the school.
Starting from these three components, the analysis is divided into two successive steps. First, the paper analyzes the main socio-demographic and professional determinants of teachers' attitudes towards the relationship with families, considering characteristics such as gender, age, length of service, school type, subject area, and working environment. Second, it explores the association between these attitudinal components and certain dimensions of work well-being, with a particular focus on stress, burnout, and professional self-efficacy. The first expected contribution is to provide an empirical mapping of teachers' attitudes toward their relationships with families. Second, it seeks to demonstrate the association between these attitudes and various work conditions, well-being, and professional sustainability. 

This contribution analyses the relationship between educational leadership, teachers’ motivation and pathways to the profession, with a particular focus on the dynamics that characterise the interaction between principals and newly hired teachers in the context of democratic schools. In an increasingly complex educational ecosystem, the relationship between principals and newly hired teachers is a determining factor in the functioning of the school organisation and the quality of learning (Moretti & Alessandrini, 2015; Rosa, 2017).

International literature has highlighted how distributed and situated leadership is a key element in building collaborative professional environments that can support entry into the profession and promote multi-level improvement processes (Spillane, 2006; Harris, 2014). Research conducted at national level shows that entry into the profession requires a training ecosystem capable of integrating organisational and relational dimensions. It also emphasises that the essential conditions for organisational well-being and teachers’ motivation require participatory decision-making processes and the development of professional communities (Barzanò, 2008; Guerra, 2018; Moretti, 2022; Moretti & Fiorucci, 2022). Within this framework, the principal plays a strategic role in supporting newly hired teachers through guidance, mentoring and providing formative feedback (Hobson et al., 2009). From this perspective, effectiveness is measured through a multi-actor and multi-level approach, emphasising the strategic role of the university in qualifying the professional practices of tutors for newly hired teachers and in strengthening the link between academic institutions, regional education offices and local schools (Crozier & Friedberg, 1978; Scheerens, 2018).

The contribution focuses on the complexity of the school system, exploring the relational dynamics among the actors involved and the implications they have on the quality of the education system. The study of professional identity and teachers' reflections on educational practices provides an in-depth understanding of how educational and organisational structures influence daily teaching, contributing to a clearer understanding of teachers' professional development processes.

The unit of analysis considered includes tutor teachers and newly hired teachers assigned to them in the provinces of Frosinone-Latina-Rome-Rieti-Viterbo who enrolled in the tutor teacher training course organised by the Department of Education Sciences of Roma Tre University in the year 2025/2026 in collaboration with the Lazio Regional Education Office of the Ministry of Education and Merit.

Two semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data, with the aim of gathering and analysing the different perspectives of the teachers belonging to the two groups considered. The questions concerned educational leadership, motivation and access to the profession, including elements relating to the educational environment and the relationship with the principal within the scope of the training programme for tutors of newly hired teachers.

The analysis highlights the importance of considering the transition of newly hired teachers as a complex and multidimensional process, in which educational leadership, motivation and pathways to the profession play a positive role in building an inclusive, innovative and sustainable learning environment. The main findings of the research make it possible to reflect on the strategic role of principals and tutor teachers in enhancing the quality of the training experience from a systemic and multi-level perspective.