Conference Program

This paper examines parental educational narratives amid the implementation of Chile’s Inclusion Act, a reform designed to address key drivers of socioeconomic segregation in schools and recognised as one of the first explicit attempts to promote social mixing (Rojas et al., 2023). Research on its implementation suggest that the reform has had limited impact on the enrolment of low-income families (Honey & Carrasco, 2023; Sillard et al., 2018). Moreover, it has faced considerable resistance from parents, who experience the new system with anxiety and heightened perceptions of risk, feeling that the reform devalues capitals they previously mobilised in school choice processes (Carrasco et al., 2021; Hernández & Carrasco, 2022).

Drawing on 47 interviews with 20 families whose children attend schools implementing the Inclusion Act in southern Santiago, this paper broadens analysis of parents’ resistance to desegregation policies by showing how their understandings of ‘good education’ extend beyond formal schooling. Parents consistently emphasised that ‘education starts at home’, using this expression to describe intensive parenting practices marked by demanding physical and emotional labour, including ubiquitous presence, vigilant monitoring of schools, and acting as moral exemplars to transmit values such as effort and respect. Yet the importance parents attribute to ‘what happens at home’ contrasts with its perceived fragility. Many feared that this home-centred dimension of education could be undermined through contact with families they regard as lacking ‘good’ parenting – particularly from other social groups – reinforcing the value they place on socially homogeneous schools.

Building on Collet & Tort’s (2017) understanding of educations as plural, the paper extends analysis of families’ enactment of desegregation policies by considering discourses beyond schooling that shape family-education relationships. It argues that parents’ conflation of ‘good education’ and ‘good parenting’ underpins their preference for socially homogeneous schools. ‘Good parenting’ becomes a crucial moral boundary that reinforces individualised educational responsibility and limits dispositions toward social mixing.

In contemporary educational debate, the relationship between families and educational institutions is most often discussed through the language of parental involvement, partnership, and shared accountability. While these perspectives have undoubtedly contributed to acknowledging the relevance of families in educational processes, they also tend to assume the institutional framework as the primary locus of education. Within this view, the family risks being interpreted mainly in terms of its degree of alignment with institutional expectations, rather than being recognised in its own pedagogical specificity. From a social pedagogical standpoint, this raises a more fundamental question concerning the educational meaning of the family as a generative space.

Social pedagogy has long emphasised that education cannot be reduced to instruction or institutional provision alone but unfolds within relationships through which new generations are gradually introduced to a shared world. In this sense, the family represents the first context in which the asymmetrical responsibility of adults towards those who arrive in the world takes shape. This responsibility does not primarily consist in performing predefined functions, but in sustaining the conditions through which new subjects can find a place in an already existing symbolic and social horizon. Education, therefore, emerges here as a generative practice, rooted in the intergenerational continuity that allows the world to persist while remaining open to renewal.

Reconsidering the notion of generativity within a social pedagogical framework, this reflection interprets generativity not simply as an individual developmental disposition, but as a relational and educational structure connected to the responsibility for the continuity of the human world. Such an interpretation resonates with broader pedagogical reflections that understand education as a response to the arrival of newcomers, whose presence calls for processes of transmission, recognition, and transformation. From this perspective, family generativity can be understood as a fundamental pedagogical condition that precedes institutional arrangements while also making them possible.

This issue appears particularly relevant in late modern societies, where processes of individualisation and functional differentiation have profoundly reshaped both family life and educational institutions. In this context, the relationship between families and institutions is frequently organised around procedural and regulatory frameworks, which, although necessary, may obscure the deeper pedagogical significance of their encounter. A social pedagogical perspective makes it possible to bring this dimension back into view, highlighting how families and institutions participate, in different ways, in a shared generative responsibility.

Reframing family-institution relationships through the lens of generativity allows us to move beyond an exclusively functional understanding and to recognise their common orientation towards the formation of subjects and the continuity of the social world. It also becomes possible to reconsider the public significance of family educational experience, not as a matter external to education, but as one of its essential conditions. By placing generativity at the centre of reflection, this paper seeks to contribute to current international discussions on education, social pedagogy, and democracy, proposing a social pedagogical perspective that understands educational relationships as generative practices through which society assumes responsibility for its own continuity and for the public meaning of education.

This contribution presents a community-based practice developed to counteract widening inequality, persistent poverty, and increasing socio-spatial polarisation. Through the Sguardi inSUStituibili initiative (promoted by CESPEFI – Centre for Family and Childhood Education Studies), it illustrates a participatory documentation process that, in 2024 and 2025, involved all educational institutions in a specific district of Brescia marked by socio-cultural complexity, segregation and high levels of vulnerability.

As part of the broader SUS (Sustainable Urban Development) Strategy promoted by the Municipality of Brescia, participatory documentation served as a strategic tool to reinforce the role of schools as key institutions for social cohesion, equal opportunities, and democratic participation. In a highly marginalised area, schools recognised themselves not only as places of instruction but also as privileged observatories of inequality and catalysts of collective learning processes.

Each social and educational actor in the area observes inequality from different and partial perspectives. Participatory documentation enabled these viewpoints to be connected, valuing both professional knowledge and everyday practices. Through the systematic collection of observations, narratives, educational materials, and qualitative evidence, it became possible to make visible the learning processes generated by the SUS project and to identify the changes emerging at both educational and community levels.

The collected materials were discussed in teachers’ meetings, assemblies, and community round tables, ultimately converging in a public event with local authorities and associations. This dialogic dimension nurtured a culture of transparency, open discussion, and shared responsibility, transforming the school into a genuine community laboratory—a place where democracy is enacted through collective interpretation of processes, reflection on choices, and evaluation of outcomes.

The involvement of all actors in producing and interpreting documentation strengthened a sense of collective responsibility in addressing inequality. Documenting together means revealing what is often invisible: everyday educational processes, pedagogical decisions, students’ real needs, and interactions between schools and their surrounding territory. This fosters a public culture grounded in dialogue and mutual accountability.

Participatory territorial documentation also makes it possible to identify barriers and resources, recognises inequalities in access to educational opportunities, brings to light latent assets within the community, and gives visibility to innovative practices that exist but are not yet systematised. It is not conceived as a project for communication, but rather as a transformative device—an engine of social cohesion, a space for democratic participation, and a driver of shared growth for all institutions involved.

Through joint reflection and continuous review, the initiative promoted pedagogical innovation and inclusion, turning the inequality‑reduction project into a collective process of learning, evaluation, and civic action. By valuing the contributions of all participants, it helped steer the local education system toward greater equity and social justice.

As the promoter and guardian of this territorial documentation process, the school strengthened its public legitimacy as a democratic institution. It assumed a role of cultural leadership within the educational community and presented itself to citizens as a space for dialogue, knowledge, and the collective construction of social justice.

A clear sign of inequity within current educational systems is school segregation, generally defined as the high concentration of a minority or disadvantaged group within a school or a classroom, relative to the presence of that same group in the surrounding area (Antonini, Argentin & Santagati, 2025; Cordini & Parma, 2025; Cordini & Ranci, 2025; Council of Europe, 2017).

Originally conceptualized in the United States, a context historically shaped by significant migratory flows and residential segregation, this phenomenon has evolved into a global subject of analysis. Over time, diverse theoretical perspectives have converged in recognizing its complex and multifaceted nature. Furthermore, there is a broad consensus in identifying a plurality of drivers — ranging from family choices to the so-called 'educational landscape' (Cordini & Parma, 2025) — that interact across different cultural, social, and educational dimensions.

Developing a comprehensive theoretical framework is essential for highlighting diverse interpretative perspectives. One approach prioritizes the quantitative dimension, defining the phenomenon numerically as a high concentration of disadvantaged students (Ranci, 2019). While seemingly straightforward, this definition raises significant conceptual issues regarding the meanings of 'disadvantage,' 'foreign background,' and 'socio-economic status', categories that are often intertwined. From another standpoint, a different reading focuses on the quality of the educational experience: school segregation occurs when the educational path provided and experienced within the school lacks quality (Zolletto, 2022).

As such, to design effective counter-strategies that integrate multiple levels and dimensions, it is essential to adopt a broad analytical perspective.

In 2022, the social enterprise Con i Bambini, as part of the Fondo per il contrasto alla povertà educativa minorile, issued the 'Vicini di scuola' call for proposals. This initiative supports projects aimed at reducing school segregation phenomena affecting minors aged 6–13. The call promotes interventions that ensure high-quality education even in the most complex contexts, with the medium-term goal of progressively rebalancing the social composition of schools. This objective is pursued by expanding the services available to minors and families, experimenting with educational practices that bridge the gap between schools and the extracurricular world, and fostering collaboration between schools with diverse student populations. Ultimately, these actions seek to encourage families to return to their local neighborhood schools, attracted by the quality of learning, relationships and educational experiences, as well as the strength of the services provided.

As is increasingly common, the call for proposals required an external body tasked with the initiative's impact evaluation. Although this process is currently ongoing, the privileged position of the Center for Research on Education Policies (CeRiForm) at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, to which the authors belong, has enabled a preliminary reconstruction of the main desegregation strategies. Through a desk analysis of the 23 funded projects, this study explores the main approaches adopted to counteract segregation. From this perspective, it is particularly valuable to reflect on the secondary data acquired, placing them in dialogue with the conceptual framework described above.

Neighbourhood effects related to education are well documented in both Nordic and international research (Berg, 2021; Borgen & Zachrisson, 2025; Galster & Sharkey, 2017; Ljunggren & Orupabo, 2020; Markussen et al., 2024; Markussen & Røed, 2022, 2023; Mikkelsen & Agdal, 2024; Nieuwenhuis & Hooimeijer, 2016; Sharkey & Faber, 2014). Despite longstanding ambitions of equal educational opportunities (Blossing et al., 2014; Corall-Granados et al., 2025; Elstad, 2023; Mikkelsen & Agdal, 2024), socioeconomic inequality and urban segregation are increasing in Nordic cities (NOU 16:2020; Tunström & Wang, 2019). We explore how youth and professionals understand neighbourhoods for educational opportunities.

This paper draws on qualitative interviews with young people living in low-socioeconomic-status (SES) neighbourhoods in a Norwegian city, and with professionals working with youth in the same areas. While most of the professionals live in other parts of the city and therefore do not encounter the neighbourhood in the same immediate way as the youth living there, they are familiar with these areas through their professional practice and voluntary engagement. There are significant differences in how professionals understand and perceive youth’s living conditions. Some professionals occasionally invite youth to tell about issues such as racism and criticize other professionals for relying on assumptions rather than youths’ own accounts and lived experiences.

Although some professionals actively ask questions, they nonetheless have knowledge about the youth’s lived experiences. While the youth themselves emphasize racism, violence, and poverty as central features of their everyday lives, professionals often frame these conditions differently. Poverty is frequently silenced, and assumptions about parents do not always correspond to the youth’s own accounts. Whereas professionals tend to highlight language-related challenges, the young people describe the precarities of poverty and parents who are often unavailable because of unpredictable and unfavourable working hours. Professionals thus appear to orient themselves through pre-existing assumptions that may themselves be marked by antagonistic contradictions. Hesitation or discomfort in approaching these lived realities may cause them to miss crucial aspects of young people’s experiences.

Drawing on Paulo Freire’s pedagogy (1970), we argue that this gap is not simply a matter of different perceptions, but also of which experiences are recognised as valid in pedagogical practice. Freire’s understanding of dialogue, participation, and critical consciousness, highlights the need to move the relationship between professionals and youth from a subject–object to a subject–subject relation. From this perspective, the task of the professionals is to explore youth`s situation together with them. By starting from generative themes grounded in everyday life, youth and professionals may develop a more situated understanding of how structural conditions shape educational opportunities. Seen through Freire’s pedagogy of hope, the problem is not only misunderstanding, but of pedagogy itself. When professionals do not see the concerns voiced by young people, they risk reinforcing alienation and closing opportunities for the development of critical consciousness. A more dialogical approach, grounded in young people’s own lived experiences, may instead create conditions for less alienation and greater possibilities for action, choice, and transformation.

A place, understood as the geographic space inhabited by a diverse community, can be viewed as a cultural commons resource for art educators seeking to promote social cohesion through art-based education.

Daugavpils is not only the birthplace of Mark Rothko but also the second-largest city in contemporary Latvia. Historically situated at the crossroads of different states, cultures, and economic traditions, the city has long functioned as a meeting point of diverse communities. Today, Daugavpils is home to a heterogeneous population representing a variety of cultural, linguistic, religious, and social groups. While this diversity constitutes a valuable social and cultural resource, it also presents challenges. Different communities often remain separated by historical narratives, stereotypes, prejudice, and limited opportunities for meaningful interaction. As a result, the absence of shared cultural ground can hinder inclusive communication, mutual trust, and effective social integration. In this context, the creation and activation of cultural commons—shared cultural spaces, practices, and resources accessible to all community members—may play an important role in reducing social tensions.

One of the key institutions contributing to this process is the Mark Rothko Museum, a major cultural centre in Daugavpils. The museum not only preserves and promotes the artistic legacy associated with Rothko but also actively participates in Latvia’s contemporary art life through international exhibitions, artist residencies, and cultural events. In addition to its exhibition program, the museum plays a significant educational role. Through a range of museopedagogical initiatives, it supports the development of cultural literacy among local youth and encourages active engagement with art. These workshops create opportunities for participants to critically reflect on artistic expression, explore issues of identity and perception, and develop their own creative abilities.

This paper analyzes a series of youth workshops organized by the Rothko Museum in collaboration with Daugavpils University under the title “The Other in Art and Life.” The workshops were designed as a creative intervention aimed at encouraging dialogue about identity, difference, and coexistence within a culturally diverse urban environment. Using an evaluation framework that considers inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes, the study examines how participation in these workshops influenced young people’s attitudes and interactions. Particular attention is given to indicators such as increased tolerance, improved cultural understanding, and enhanced intergroup communication.

The findings suggest that the workshops created an environment for dialogue and collaborative creativity, enabling participants from different backgrounds to engage with one another in meaningful ways. By exploring artistic interpretations of “the Other,” participants were encouraged to reflect on their own identities as well as on the perspectives of others within their community. As a result, the program contributed to strengthening intergroup understanding and tolerance among young people in Daugavpils. Furthermore, it supported the recognition and practical use of cultural commons (Bowers, 2009, Santagata et.al. 2011, Bertacchini, 2020) —shared cultural experiences, narratives, and creative spaces—as a foundation for building social cohesion. In this way, the workshops demonstrate how art-based educational initiatives can foster a deeper awareness of collective identity while simultaneously respecting cultural diversity within the local community.