Conference Program

Operating within the context of open knowledge is an essential prerequisite for transformative education, once we accept that the function of education is to combat common sense (Gramsci, 1975, Q. 12, p. 1535), as well as to transform the self, the external world and a truth that is often accepted passively (Bertoni Jovine, 1979). On these assumptions, the participation of each individual in the construction, sharing and questioning of knowledge, as a “membre producteur de l'humanité pensante”, to quote Paul Otlet (van Binsbergen, 1995, p. 153), becomes an essential condition.

Openness can be understood as the drive to make the knowledge produced and stored by publishing systems and major digital platforms widely accessible. This meaning of accessibility can take on various meanings in terms of technology, language and cognition, in line with the principles of understandability, perceivability, operability and robustness, without, however, capturing the complexity and breadth of the concept of open knowledge. From our point of view, the dimension of open knowledge should go further and be intended as a frame aimed at allowing the widest possible participation not only in the use but also in the creation of “collective memories” (Valente, 2002, p. 152), recognising and expanding the base of subjects legitimised to intervene in the dynamics of knowledge construction and management. This meaning is closely linked to the frame of Post-Normal Science.

The concept of openness is also taken up by Leonelli (2025) who, in comparing Popper's rational approach to openness, centered on the exchange of ideas and goods, with Berson's approach, focused on both intellectual and emotional connections between living beings, means the realisation of a fully open society as what makes inclusive morality possible, capable of promoting a creative imagination of the future, aspects that are central to a transformative conception of education. We can see elements of Arendt, Morin and Funtowicz in Leonelli's statement that “Openness pushes humans to go beyond their own experiences and perceptions, consider different ways of life, and foster the capacity to challenge and change one’s worldview, thus encouraging indeterminacy, instability, dynamism” (Leonelli 2025, p.7).

With particular reference to educational contexts, these reflections can lead in different directions, from the identification of thematic and interdisciplinary in-depth study paths, to the promotion of participatory projects for the construction of open educational resources, to the analysis of the mechanisms that lead to a lack of or limited participation in the processes of knowledge construction and elaboration, as well as to the analysis of educational content, in terms of mainstream culture, disciplinary hegemony – in the various meanings in which Foucault speaks of discipline – dominant narrative frames, and stereotypical conceptions and representations.

Our analysis (Valente et al., 2022; Tudisca & Valente, 2024; Tudisca et al., 2024) starts from a particular cultural product, textbooks, with the aim of promoting transformative education (Valente & Tudisca, 2026) through the recognition of underlying power dynamics and the main narrative frames presented, as textbooks are both a medium and a device, according to Agamben (2006, p. 22).

Starting from the theoretical framework of Transformative Education and the notion of positive peace (Galtung 2006), this contribution offers an interdisciplinary reflection, placing bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy (hooks, 2020; Bianchi, 2022) in dialogue with the Greek myth of Philoctetes (Milani 1879). The analysis seeks to rethink the margin not as a mere space of exclusion, but as a critical site of awareness, ethical responsibility, and transformative potential (hooks, 2021), in line with Peace Studies (Bartolucci 2025). In hooks’ pedagogy, the margin is ambivalent: a space of violence and silencing, but also of resistance, critical vision, and the construction of alternative and situated knowledge. This idea is juxtaposed with Philoctetes, a wounded and excluded hero whose isolation highlights the ethical contradictions of the community: without his voice and his wounded body, the collective endeavor cannot be realized. The ekphrasis by Philostratus (Imago 17), a Greek author of the second and third centuries A.C., translates this condition into image and narrative, transforming vulnerability into a device for ethical attention and creating a symbolic space where conflict can be observed, narrated, and discussed. This perspective connects with Galtung’s TRANSCEND method (2008), which, through creative dialogue and the search for shared solutions, demonstrates how valuing the voices of excluded subjects (positioned at the margins of dominant epistemologies and thereby making visible the epistemic mechanisms through which exclusion is normalized) can transform relationships and conflicts (Galtung 2006; 2008). In this way, attention to the margins – both in the myth of Philoctetes and in hooks’ pedagogy – becomes a practice of recognition and shared responsibility, contributing to the construction of a positive peace that goes beyond the mere absence of conflict by promoting equity and social transformation. In light of hooks’ engaged pedagogy, this space becomes an educational laboratory for listening, empathy, and shared responsibility. The picture book Skin Again (hooks & Raschka, 2004) is proposed here as a narrative tool to deconstruct prejudices related to otherness, adopting a decolonial approach that, as Borghi (2020) notes, encourages the recognition and dismantling of power structures that perpetuate coloniality in knowledge, bodies and imaginaries (Burgio 2022).

In the Senza Zaino movement, which is active in 800 schools in Italy, the System of Responsibilities (Orsi et al., 2016) is practiced daily. This system is directly connected to the values of Peace and Democracy. The theme of responsibility is, above all, the theme of care(Jonas, 1990). According to the sources, one is responsible for others and their growth even before oneself; therefore, the school has the mission to encourage students to take care of one another, including younger peers and those in difficulty (Doise and Mugny, 2016), by fostering contexts of resonance(Rosa, 2015).

As a result, it is not considered necessary to introduce new subjects dedicated to citizenship, emotions, or relationships. The traditional structure of schooling often fuels individualism, as grades, assessments, textbooks, and even the physical layout of single-seat desks are designed for the individual. This environment can cause students to focus only on themselves, leading to a lack of community and the sense of growing together Claris, 2013).

The System of Responsibilities, which involves specific tasks and commitments for students, makes the school a concrete community that generates opportunities for resonance relationships. This serves as an "antidote value" to prevent youth distress and prepares students for a future of Democracy, Peace, and Nonviolence From a systemic perspective of the Global Curriculum Approach (Orsi, 2016), this responsibility must also involve teachers and principals to build a professional community of care. Mutual aid among students must be mirrored by mutual aid among the adults within the school. Research (Hattie, Vivanet et al., 2016) indicates that such a responsible community is significant for the acquisition of democratic habits, helping to counter bullying, cyberbullying, violence, and individualistic behaviors.

This contribution is situated within the framework of a critical pedagogy that adopts complexity as its meta-model, within which epistemological, ethical and value-based, and political issues can be contextualized (Cambi, 2025). It is in this perspective, with the tensions it nurtures, that the problem of cultural poverty, related to fundamental human rights, must be contextualized. A democratic community is one in which people participate and concretely contribute to the life of the community (Dewey, 1916), however, participation today - perhaps more than in the past- requires a sense of being recognised, of feeling like an active part of a common history and destiny. Common goals and shared interests, in fact, promote cohesion among individuals, communities, and cultures.The ethical dimension underlying democracy therefore continues to play a central role today, because many unresolved issues require overcoming uncertainties and difficulties, negative conditions, and limitations that hinder citizens' participation in community life: a weak socio-cultural position (Biasin, 2021), increasing inequalities accentuated by job insecurity, economic instability, hardship, insecurity, and uncertainty create a vulnerability that is also a source of anxiety and suffering for people (Han, 2024), of apathy and alienation from what is happening. People increasingly live as indivisible monads, lacking authentic contact; most relationships arise from random and accidental collisions (Chomsky, 2014), without real interest, with a loss of faith in opportunities for redemption that can instead arise from the sense of belonging and spirit of sharing necessary to understand the meaning of existence (Biasin, 2022). Furthermore, the absence of common goals inevitably contributes to the impoverishment of the relational space, with important repercussions on democratic and civil life, because the sense of co-belonging crumbles: individuals feel alienated, detached, and with resignation mixed with passivity, they ‘choose’ to remain on the margins of human interaction, losing the profound sense of human togetherness (Bauman, 2010). If we understand citizenship as an expression of involvement and recognition within a community of belonging, we must also consider the skills that enable people to act actively in these life contexts (Parricchi, 2019, 2021; Fabbri & Soriani, 2021). Added to this widespread feeling of unease and vulnerability is the cognitive gap relating to information and knowledge. This gap is accentuated by disinformation that generates post-truth dynamics based on partial beliefs and opinions, founded on prejudices and fallacious premises. In this ecosystem, it is difficult for people to interpret, decode, and understand what is happening: words are misunderstood, languages are lost in a Tower of Babel, and superficiality reigns, obscuring the value of symbolic and ethical-relational dimensions (Dominici, 2026). This is where education that cultivates analytical, critical, and systemic thinking skills (Goleman & Senge, 2014) can turn educational institutions, communities, cultural associations, meeting centers, and youth spaces into places of humanization capable of generating the future (D'Aprile, 2025), promoting development, and encouraging social participation.

Peace education is increasingly understood as a transformative set of cognitive, relational and ethical‑political competencies needed to address conflict, polarisation and disinformation in contemporary democracies. Rather than defining peace as the absence of violence, current approaches emphasise the construction of just, inclusive and dialogical relationships (UNESCO, 2024; Prudenciano de Souza & Velez de Castro, 2025). This aligns with UNESCO’s 2023 Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development, which links peace education with human rights, global citizenship and sustainability and calls for systemic reforms (UNESCO, 2023).

UNESCO’s four transformative competencies—critical thinking, respect for diversity, belonging to a shared humanity and the planet, and peaceful conflict transformation—offer a framework for analysing initial teacher education and its ethical‑relational dimensions.

This contribution examines how peace education is conceptualised and enacted in the initial training of future primary teachers at a Swiss university of teacher education. The study analyses its presence across the formal curriculum, institutional initiatives and students’ reflective work. The corpus includes: (1) 72 bachelor‑level module descriptions (2024/25); (2) documentation from the 2025 International Democracy Day; (3) around forty student papers. Materials were analysed through qualitative content analysis using UNESCO’s competencies as the analytical lens.

Curricular analysis reveals an uneven distribution. Critical thinking is widely represented (70–80% of modules), while peaceful conflict transformation appears in 30–40%, mainly in practice‑oriented modules. Respect for diversity and a sense of belonging to humanity and the planet are far less visible (six modules each) and rarely integrated into assessment tools. These findings concern formal documentation and do not capture hidden curriculum dimensions, a limitation noted in democracy education research (Plata et al., 2025).

The Democracy Day functioned as an intensive pedagogical device, foregrounding the role of media in shaping representations of war and conflict. The plenary addressed images, propaganda and digital manipulation—including AI‑generated deepfakes—thus linking peace education with critical media literacy (UNESCO, 2023). Students’ collective outputs highlighted cooperation, memory, responsibility and dialogical conflict management, as well as challenges related to emotions, sensitive issues and classroom heterogeneity.

Individual papers further explored these themes, focusing on language, non‑violent communication, peer mediation and emotional regulation. Students also identified structural tensions, such as difficulties in assessing relational competencies and the perceived gap between school practices and a polarised public discourse.

Overall, the findings show that peace education in initial teacher training operates as a cross‑cutting domain shaping teachers’ professional identity by intertwining critical thinking, conflict mediation, ethical responsibility and global awareness (Castro et al., 2025).

The relationship between science and society has been shaped by a long process of reflection unfolded through different phases, following a dialectical movement and alternating moments of democratization and exclusion (Valente, 2002; Neave, 2006). Within this trajectory, Open Science - OS (UNESCO, 2021) represents an attempt to make scientific processes more transparent, accessible, and collaborative, extending participation beyond academia to institutions and society at large. However, this aspiration may entail inherent pitfalls. While potentially representing an opportunity to provide marginalized individuals and communities with access to the data, infrastructures, and tools needed to address both local and global challenges (Bezuidenhout et al., 2020), it risks reproducing inequalities and existing asymmetries when infrastructural, cultural, and methodological choices remain unexamined, thereby reinforcing dominant knowledge paradigms (Leonelli, 2023; Fraser, 2007). For this reason, it is essential that OS, positioning itself at the intersection of Ziman's critique of post-academic and proprietary science and Galtung's conception of positive peace (Galtung, 2013), includes epistemic justice among its structural objectives (Fricker, 2007), thereby pursuing scientific pluralism and equitable access to knowledge.

Research Infrastructures (RIs) have become one of the main settings through which OS is promoted and implemented, fostering new environments where collective process of knowledge co-creation may be hosted, and technical expertise may be integrated with contextual and situated knowledges (Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1993). RIs are defined as complex socio-technical ecosystems (ESFRI, 2020) in which knowledge production depends as much on human, social, and institutional relations as much on technological architectures, conceived as full-fledged actors (Latour, 1987). RIs are not neutral enablers of research but active participants in shaping epistemic possibilities and exclusions (Braidotti, 2022).

In light of this, to effectively advance OS, RIs requires more than investments in technologies and facilities: they also demand a specific focus on the competences of researchers and infrastructure users (UNESCO, 2021; When et al., 2024). Such competences can no longer be limited to disciplinary expertise, but must also include ethical awareness, reflexivity, collaborative capacity, openness to epistemological diversity, and the ability to engage publics in scientific practices. From this perspective, training and lifelong learning acquire a fully transformative meaning (Mezirow, 1991; Sterling, 2001), aligning with the principles of the Transformative Education (TE), rooted in democratic and dialogical traditions. The convergence between OS and TE is particularly relevant in the pursuit of positive peace. Beyond the mere absence of conflict, positive peace entails the construction of more just, equal, and harmonious societies (Galtung, 2013).

This contribution discusses training activities within the FOSSR RI, aimed at promoting OS in Social Science research. FOSSR developed a multilevel ecosystem connecting learning forms, audiences, and engagement levels into a coherent capacity-building strategy (Spinello & Fabrizio, 2025). The portfolio comprises foundational Online Training Courses introducing OS and FAIR principles; Participatory Sessions engaging participants in co-design and experiential learning; and Higher Education Programmes designed in collaboration with academic institutions. By enabling research environments with a commitment to transformative training, the FOSSR approach exemplifies how OS and TE can jointly contribute to building more democratic, and peaceful knowledge societies.

In her seminal work on peace, Galtung (1969) defines peace as “absence of violence” and indicates that violence is also “structural,” linking it with social injustice. This structural character is also reprised in the “Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence” (2011), which identifies violence against women and gender-based violence as an outcome of historically unequal power relations between women and men.

The practice presented in this proposal builds on these assumptions, applying them to our realm of work and research: cities and territories, which are a materialisation of power relationships. Our reflections have resulted in identifying structural violence in territories as deriving from the invisibility of women and other subjectivities in their urban experience (Matrix, 1984), which is considered minor with respect to the “mainstream” one, which corresponds to that of an adult, white, able-bodied male (Sandercock, 2004). The same occurs with women’s projects, contributions, and proposals, which have been overlooked in the history of architecture and urban and territorial planning (Muxì, Orellana, 2022). Even if these critiques have a long tradition in feminist reflections on the city (Matrix, 1984), they still do not have space in education: architecture and urban planning are still taught as technical and therefore neutral.

We saw that numerous solutions and proposals that come from a different view on cities and territories (Belingardi, Poli, Ragozino, 2025) are overlooked, as well as the virtuous experiences that come from an authentic listening of the territory (Esposito et al., 2025).

To counterbalance this situation, we decided to establish a master’s programme (a specialisation course for graduate students and professionals) to teach a different way to plan and design: “Gender Cities: Methods and Techniques of Urban and Regional Planning and Design.” The course is now in its fourth year. It is organised by the University of Florence, in cooperation with the University of Trieste, the University of Naples Federico II, the University of Palermo,Sapienza University of Rome, the Politecnico of Bari, and the IRISS Institute of CNR. It is a practice of transformative education (Freire, 2002) and of freedom (hooks, 1994).

The course is composed of eight teaching units that cover different topics such as genealogies, or the “herstory” of architecture and urbanism; geography and the observation of the territory and its inhabitants; a specific unit on intersectionality and exclusions; public and social services; commons and care; urban public policies; housing; and urban and regional planning and design.

Three dimensions are embedded in the course: an international one, which means that scholars and professionals from other countries are involved, and some activities are carried out with them, such as seminars and workshops; a practical one, realised in numerous workshops and laboratories; and a social one, which involves visiting and interacting with civil society organisations, especially, but not limited to, feminist organisations and collectives.

Armed conflicts and protracted humanitarian crises profoundly reshape educational spaces, transforming schools into fragile yet crucial sites where protection, care, learning continuity, and democratic meaning intersect (INEE, 2010; UNESCO, 2021). In war-affected and emergency contexts, education cannot be reduced to a technical response to disruption; rather, it becomes a political and pedagogical terrain in which possibilities for peace, agency, and social reconstruction are negotiated (Freire, 1970; Galtung, 1969). In dialogue with the panel’s focus on alphabets of peace as transformative devices, this contribution advances a pedagogical framework for peace-oriented education in emergency and conflict-affected schooling, drawing on the experience of the Erasmus+ project ServU – Service-learning in Higher Education for Ukraine’s Recovery (2023-2026).

Building on critical pedagogy and education-in-emergencies scholarship, this contribution conceptualizes peace education not as a standalone curriculum but as a plural set of situated competences – alphabets of peace – that structure educational practices under conditions of extreme constraint (Freire, 1970; Lederach, 1997). These alphabets are articulated along four interrelated dimensions: (1) relational literacy, encompassing dialogic practices, mediation, and nonviolent conflict management (Lederach, 1997); (2) civic–ethical literacy, oriented toward participation, reciprocity, and the recognition of education as a public good (UNESCO, 2021); (3) critical media literacy, addressing propaganda, disinformation, and the production of meaning in digitally saturated war contexts (Galtung, 1969); and (4) care-oriented literacy, grounded in trauma-sensitive, inclusive, and continuity-focused pedagogies that are central to education in emergencies (INEE, 2010).

The ServU project provides an empirically grounded backdrop for this framework, illustrating how service-learning can be reconfigured as an institutional and pedagogical infrastructure connecting universities, schools, and local communities during wartime and recovery phases (Hoth de Olano et al., 2024). Within this perspective, this contribution highlights the role of higher education institutions as mediating actors capable of transforming solidarity-driven actions into reflexive, accountable, and educative practices. Service-learning is thus interpreted not merely as experiential pedagogy, but as a governance device that enables shared responsibility, collective learning, and democratic orientation across educational levels (Kenworthy & Opatska, 2023; UNESCO, 2021).

From a methodological standpoint, this contribution reflects on forms of evidence and evaluation that are ethically sustainable in emergency settings, privileging formative assessment, qualitative documentation, and community feedback over extractive or outcome-driven models (INEE, 2010). Attention is given to the tensions between urgency and reflection, protection and participation, care and critique.

By situating emergency schooling within broader debates on peace pedagogy and democratic education, this contribution argues that schools – even under conditions of war – can function as laboratories of peace, where alphabets of coexistence, critical awareness, and civic imagination are continuously rearticulated (Galtung, 1969; Lederach, 1997).

The pedagogical and cultural journal of the Movimento di Cooperazione Educativa (Educational Cooperation Movement) is written by teachers for teachers. It is not a teaching guide; it is meant for both educational research and teacher training, allowing professional development alongside personal growth within a social and political context. We pair the exchange of practices with articles that intertwine academic and pedagogical knowledge—tales from the classroom with tales from the society. The journal is, for us, a collective device for transformative education in adults.

In a recent issue, we asked ourselves and the authors: what is the meaning of education when war becomes a permanent scenario? Amidst war, education and school take on the role of a space for political and cultural resistance, aimed at defusing its symbolic, narrative, and institutional premises. War is a cultural climate entering into schools through media, social networks and homes. When a young girl asks, "Is World War III about to break out?", war is no longer distant. It is already an educational experience. In the interview with Domenico Quirico, a critical point that we share emerged: do not hide the causes of wars from children. Protecting them does not mean lying or simplifying until emptying things of meaning, but rather supporting them toward understanding. If war is also a cultural invention—and not inscribed in our DNA, as Telmo Pievani notes—then in school that construction can be challenged. And perhaps, as suggested by Zournazi and Marcon, hope is not naive optimism, but a political practice of "positive peace”, which is not merely the absence of war, but the construction of justice and social conditions that make coexistence possible.

The Movimento di Cooperazione Educativa has a long term experience of transformative education that seeks to contribute to the building of a culture of peace. By transformative education, we do not mean just a set of teaching methods, but a critical process that impacts on the daily coexistence in the classroom. In our practices, cooperation is not a technique, but a pedagogical principle.

The shared construction of rules, decision-making processes and responsibility, the use of research as a learning practice constitute devices through which democracy is exercised, not simply presented in lectures. Listening is not a teaching strategy, but an epistemic recognition. Even conflict is embraced in a transformative perspective. Conflict becomes an opportunity for revising one's certainties and a shared definition of the “us”.

A culture of peace is therefore not an additional content, but a daily form of experienced coexistence, in which the role of language as a common ground for mutual agreement and understanding is pivotal. "It is the language that makes us equal" still holds true today for the new citizens coming from every continent who inhabit our classrooms and our schools.