Conference Program

This paper presents the results of the survey conducted as part of the OECD “Infinity Project,” developed in collaboration with the University of Bologna. The study involved three Italian schools and three Japanese schools. The aim was to promote inclusion and well-being by developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) (Blokdyk, 2021), documented in an e-book.

The "Infinity Project" was born from an initiative originally proposed by Japan, inheriting the spirit of the "Tohoku School Project," launched to support students in overcoming the triple disaster (tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear power plant accident resulting from the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011) and to rebuild the spirit of sharing in their communities through various actions (2012–2014).

Following a visit by the OECD Secretary-General, local education authorities, schools, and adult leaders participated in a project aimed at demonstrating the progress of the recovery process from the perspective of rebuilding buildings and communities in the Tohoku region. The results were presented at a major event in Paris in 2014.

The idea behind the initiative was that by participating in this ambitious program, based on collaborative and project-based pedagogy, students would acquire advanced leadership skills.

The results achieved contributed to the launch of the "Future of Education and Skills" project. 2030” (from 2015) to emphasize some of the key underlying concepts and constructs of the OECD Learning Compass (2019).

Japanese students involved in co-creating the Learning Compass expressed a desire for a global initiative, suggesting project-based learning. This initiated “Project Infinity” with an inclusive vision, believing that students can shine and thrive when they believe that “the sky is the limit,” overcoming challenges, barriers, and walls that separate them.

The survey conducted in the three Italian schools assessed the impact of the MVP in terms of co-evolution, inclusion, and transformation of student relationships. Teachers were asked six questions to understand how inclusive teaching strategies and the shift from a lecture to an active-participatory approach (Cottini, 2018; 2022) had changed the classroom climate.

Key factors include shared emotional engagement, language diversity (Agliotti & Fabbro, 2006; Cafiero, 2009), and working in small, cooperative groups (Johnson & Johnson, 1998). Student Agency (Sokol et al., 2015; Sokol, Hammond, Kuebli, et al, 2015; Vaughn, 2021) is essential for fostering collaboration, inclusion, and co-evolutionary processes (Canevaro, 2008; Sandri, 2019).

The findings underscore the value of an integrated, international approach to improving inclusion, equity, democracy, and school well-being. They further demonstrate how participatory and inclusive practices foster shared growth and how the Italian approach to inclusion can foster interest and curiosity where special classes and special schools still exist.

Self-narrative studies represent a key approach to addressing identity challenges - such as a lack of or low self-esteem, scarce sense of agency and inadequate application of study strategies -frequently experienced by neurodivergent young adult students, generally defined as having ‘special needs’, at the beginning of their academic careers.

Through a year-long training with a specialized tutor, students are guided to retell their own story and reconsider their divergent functioning, moving beyond the traditional ‘normal vs different’ or ‘healthy vs ill’ dichotomies. The goal is to rediscover their potential, agency and capability to manage their academic choices, ensuring access to the full range of opportunities, regardless of their ‘neuroprofile’. The training program is also used to help students effectively activate the support services offered by the University in order to develop the agency for their autonomous journey beyond university years.

The results, on one hand, are considered a key element in evaluating the efficacy of the empowerment and tutoring program, aimed at enhancing university services and fostering greater equity among the student community. On the other hand, these results are used to engage in dialogue with further research on teacher training program regarding inclusive methods, in order to monitor and improve their perception of student identity, overcoming cultural biases and prejudices.

The Italian model of school inclusion represents a unique case on the international stage, the product of a historical period characterized by exceptional civil, political, and pedagogical ferment. Despite the awareness of implementation limits—often linked to resource shortages, discontinuity in teaching support, and sometimes fragmented practices—the Italian system remains a unicum, maintaining a continuity and coherence unparalleled in European and global educational contexts. From a regulatory perspective, the genesis of this model can be traced back to the 1975 Falcucci Commission’s final report (Caprino & Consegnati, 2026) and the subsequent Law 517/1977 (Pavone, 2017). These documents constitute fundamental historical turning points that sanctioned a radical paradigm shift, redefining the school as a stronghold of universal citizenship.

To reconstruct the origins and scope of the inclusive model, it is necessary to frame these phenomena within the cultural ethos of the time, marked by the profound social changes of the 1960s that culminated in the 1968 uprisings. In this context, the educational institution—whose classist and selective nature had already been masterfully analysed by Don Lorenzo Milani—was radically called into question. Similarly, the segregative practices towards the "other," typical of "total institutions," were dismantled during those same years by the Basaglian revolution. This ferment transformed the rejection of exclusionary logics into a project for the transformation of the civil fabric. Thus, the abolition of differential classes and special schools responded to the need to remove obstacles to democratic participation, in full harmony with the constitutional mandate.

The contemporary landscape appears profoundly altered. Following the decline of great collective ideologies and the crisis of social solidarity, a technocratic-corporate model has emerged, dominated by individualism and an often obsessive pursuit of performance (Arena, 2025). Schools are increasingly pressured by rhetorics oriented towards competitiveness and a misunderstood notion of merit—a phenomenon reflected in growing scepticism towards inclusion (Ianes & Augello, 2019), which risks reintroducing exclusionary logics. This trend is mirrored in a renewed public debate that fluctuates between a nostalgic yearning for the school of the past—supported by certain institutional and intellectual figures—and a rising hostility, particularly visible in the informal contexts of social networks. Here, school inclusion is often derided as a mere exercise in 'political correctness,' in a climate that frequently disqualifies the entire pedagogical discipline. Conversely, conflicting cultural elements can be found, such as the international rise since the 1990s of the social model of disability (Schianchi, 2021), reflected in more recent guidelines (UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006) and the emergence of Disability Studies (Medeghini, 2015).

With this contribution, we intend to propose a critical comparison between the historical and social background that led to the Italian model of school inclusion and the current one. The aim is to reflect on the democratic resilience of school inclusion and to understand which elements can safeguard, in a rapidly transforming social context, a pluralistic and solidary vision of school and society.

Socio-educational inequalities restrict access to cognitive and social experiences, placing students from disadvantaged backgrounds at a disadvantage. In the field of foreign languages, authenticity plays a fundamental role as a space for developing semantic and grammatical skills, contributing to greater cultural integration (Chiappelli, Leoncini, 2025). For those with a low socio-economic status, the school environment becomes crucial as it represents the only accessible space for linguistic diversity and plurality. Furthermore, the use of innovative approaches such as immersive experiences can serve as a bridge to enhance the multilingual repertoire through authentic engagement, strengthening learners’ linguistic and cultural identity, with a view to treating multicultural classes as a resource rather than an obstacle (Ritterfeld, Lüke, 2020). Through the use of immersive technologies such as virtual reality, it is possible to access a variety of safe and often realistic environments in which the learner can learn and overcome the geographical and financial barriers that limit real-world mobility (Berrezueta-Guzman, Daya, 2025). Sociological and language teaching literature agrees that a student’s linguistic repertoire is profoundly influenced by the family environment (Cook, 2012; Pavlenko 2007). Students from families with high cultural capital are often exposed to a variety of linguistic stimuli that facilitate the acquisition of new languages. Conversely, students from disadvantaged backgrounds may perceive the foreign language as a foreign and inaccessible system. Intercomprehension addresses precisely this issue, overturning the hierarchy of knowledge: it does not require students to erase their linguistic identity in order to adopt a new one, but invites them to explore their own roots (including dialects) to decode related languages (Garbarino, Leone, 2022). The Time to S.P.R.I.C. project – Shared Pathways for Romance languages, Intercomprehension and Cycling in virtual reality – stems from the need to create a synergy between theoretical foundations and a concrete educational product that can be used within the school system. At the hub of the project is an immersive, multilingual serious game set in the Susa Valley, where, at each stage, a linguistic input is presented in a different Romance language (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan or Romanian), accompanied by personalised and adaptive feedback (Camandona, Corino, 2025). This approach promotes metalinguistic awareness and respects individual learning paces, ensuring that no student is left behind due to prior gaps in knowledge, thereby enabling a vision of language education that places equity and democracy at its core. These technologies are not merely ‘add-ons’ to traditional teaching, but tools that allow us to rethink access to knowledge.

Abstract

The specialised support teacher plays a pivotal role in inclusive schooling. This is not only because of the support they provide to students with disabilities, but also because of their contribution to creating equitable, participatory and diversity-sensitive educational contexts. Current literature shows that this professional role cannot be reduced to a technical function alone; rather, it requires the integration of pedagogical and didactic expertise, relational competence, collaborative working, and shared educational responsibility (Gaspari, 2016; Canevaro & Ianes, 2024). From this perspective, the education of support teachers becomes meaningful when it promotes the acquisition of operational tools and the development of a reflective professional stance oriented towards educational care, the recognition of personal dignity and the design of meaningful, personalised learning pathways (Bruni, 2024a; Bruni, 2024b). Recent studies on initial teacher education and the competencies of inclusive teachers also emphasise the importance of connecting specialist knowledge, perceived self-efficacy, socio-emotional sensitivity and the capacity to collaborate with colleagues, families and local services (Bocci et al., 2021; Longo & Di Carlo, 2024; Morganti, 2018).

Within this framework, this study examines the perceived outcomes of the training delivered by INDIRE under Ministerial Decrees 75 and 77. It compares the two training pathways and explores differences across school levels. The analysis is based on a final questionnaire completed by participants at the end of the programme. Of the 9,354 trainees in the reference population, 3,760 completed the questionnaire, corresponding to 40.2% of the total population. The self-report instrument consisted of three quantitative sections based on a four-point Likert scale, covering opinions on the training received, the perceived impact on the professional role and perceived competences for inclusion.

Overall, the findings portray a broadly positive picture. The highest evaluations concern personal and professional growth, increased awareness of the support teacher’s role and acquisition of useful perspectives for inclusive practice. Conversely, areas requiring improvement include collaboration with local services, participation in local inclusion networks, and extending inclusive practice beyond the school context.

A consistent advantage for DM 77 was revealed when the two pathways were compared. Participants who undertook the DM 77 pathway reported a mean score of 3.51 for their training experience, compared with 3.43 for those who undertook the DM 75 pathway. Similar gaps emerge in perceived impact on the professional role (DM 77 = 3.43; DM 75 = 3.28) and perceived competence for inclusion (DM 77 = 3.46; DM 75 = 3.36). The most evident differences concern practical activities, the use of technologies, relationships with external services, and the recognition of the support teacher’s role within the school organisation.

Significant differences also emerge across school levels. Overall, teachers in preschool and upper secondary education show the most positive profiles, whereas lower secondary teachers systematically report less favourable evaluations. Taken together, these findings suggest that training is perceived as more meaningful when it strengthens technical competence alongside awareness of the educational mandate, relational responsibility and the capacity to act within inclusive ecosystems. This is consistent with studies on inclusive teacher professionalism and support teacher education (Menichetti & Piccioli, 2022; Marchisio et al., 2024).