LIBRI DI ALESSANDRA ROMANO

Il contributo esplora l’attualità del pensiero pedagogico di matrice freiriana alla luce delle più recenti articolazioni della teoria trasformativa (Mezirow, 2003; Cranton & Taylor, 2012; Marsick & Neaman, 2018). Nello specifico, sono oggetto di indagine e sistematizzazione quegli approcci metodologici per lo sviluppo professionale dei docenti che sostengono processi di riflessione critica e trasformazione degli assunti distorti. Si presenta, poi, un’esperienza di ricerca-formazione condotta con gruppi di docenti di scuola primaria e secondaria di primo grado, che ha visto l’adozione di un set di metodologie trasformative finalizzate a supportare processi di apprendimento emancipativo.

Il contributo esplora le azioni di ricerca-formazione sui processi di polarizzazione e radicalizzazione, promosse all’interno del Progetto Forward (MUR ID 85901). Ricostruisce il framework teorico-concettuale del progetto, approfondendo, nello specifico, il contributo della teoria trasformativa (Mezirow, 2003; Amiraux & Fabbri, 2020; Sabic-El-Rayess & Marsick, 2021) e degli approcci intersezionali (Crenshaw, 2017; Colombo, 2020) nella comprensione dei processi di radicalizzazione. Un’attenzione specifica è rivolta all’impianto metodologico e all’articolazione dei sistemi di attività realizzati all’interno del Progetto Forward, che comprendono la costruzione di un network di esperti internazionali sui processi di radicalizzazione, le azioni di ricerca-formazione con i professionisti che hanno contatti con cittadini provenienti da altri paesi, e il lancio di un centro internazionale di studi sulla microradicalizzazione.

Il presente contributo si inserisce all’interno del Progetto “SUPER - Percorsi di orientamento e tutorato per promuovere il successo universitario e professionale” promosso dal Dipartimento di Scienze della formazione, scienze umane e della comunicazione interculturale dell’Università di Siena.L’articolo descrive i laboratori e gli interventi di tutoring realizzati con studenti e studentesse del Corso L-19 dell’Ateneo senese e con studenti delle scuole secondarie di secondo grado del territorio aretino al fine di promuovere percorsi di orientamento al lavoro che favoriscano la scelta consapevole del percorso accademico supportando lo studente nella costruzione della propria traiettoria professionale. Le due esperienze di percorsi laboratoriali presentati in questa sede sottolineano la necessità dell’uso delle metodologie riflessive per intercettare nuovi schemi di intervento ed azione per l’orientamento universitario.

Il contributo articola una riflessione sulle nuove sfide per le professioni che sono elicitate dalle radicali trasformazioni in atto nel mondo del lavoro, sempre più digitalizzato, ubiquo e in rapido e costante cambiamento. Che cosa richiedono queste profonde e radicali trasformazioni ai professionisti? Quali interrogativi pon-gono ai sistemi formativi? Come si formano professionisti X, in grado di attraversare scenari lavorativi incerti e di farlo con capacità di immaginazione e competenza di creatività? L’articolo risponde a queste domande facendo riferimento agli studi sul neo-professionismo (Butera, 2020), agli studi sulle pratiche (Gherardi e Lippi, 2000; Sennett, 2000; Wenger, 2006) e agli studi organizzativi (Weick e Sutcliffe, 2010) che hanno offerto chiavi interpretative per intercettare le sfide future della ricerca sulle trasformazioni organizzative e professionali.

The article presents the results emerged from an annual research-training project (2019-2020), which represented one of the training actions launched within the Forward Ministerial Project, Training, research and development of community based strategies to prevent radicalization and support integration (MIUR ID 85901), of the Department of Education, Human Sciences and Intercultural Communication of the University of Siena. The research-training path involved thirty doctors, nurses and practitioners from the medical and health contexts of the Centre of Italy, who took part in a professional development course. The course aimed at offering participatory settings through active development methodologies and methods for learning from the experience (Marsick, & Neaman, 2018; Fabbri, 2019) useful for validating their practices starting from those situations that they perceive as "critical" and challengers. 30 individual semi-structured interviews were conducted and 5 focus groups. All interviews and focus groups were recorded and transcribed ad verbatim. Each participant was invited to draw up an e-portfolio that included an analysis grid for self-case studies, and reflective narratives. The textual material thus collected was subjected to textual analysis of the content in order to detect the emerging categories. The results of the content analysis and the main elicited reflections are here detailed.

In today’s age of globalization and mobility, children are impacted as they cross cultures, languages, and school systems. For the privileged this can be seen as a glamorous lifestyle; for the refugee and displaced person this move has more negative consequences. Both of these groups share both positive and negative characteristics as a result of growing up among cultures. In the 1950s Ruth Useem first referred to these children as Third Culture Kids (TCKs) who grew up in a cross-section of two cultures. This term was then expanded to Cross Culture Kids (CCKs); a subset of which includes children of refugees and migrants. This article offers a brief overview of the concept of Cross Culture Kids and research from studies conducted with this unique group of children. Educational practices and methods of interventions are considered in light of the particular needs of CCK refugees in the Italian context in order to facilitate cultural humility and inclusive processes in multiethnic and multicultural schools.

L’articolo esplora i dispositivi di gender equity e le azioni per il sostegno alle carriere femminili a partire dalla review sistematica degli studi empirici sul tema dell’ultimo ventennio (2000-2020). Sono stati analizzati centodieci contributi nazionali e internazionali. Le finalità della review sono contribuire a ricostruire lo stato dell’arte degli studi nazionali e internazionali su gender equity nei workplace, segregazioni di genere e work-life balance e offrire un quadro di sintesi rispetto alle proposte di intervento e ai dispositivi di supporto alle carriere femminili. L'obiettivo è individuare traiettorie di intervento utili a sviluppare modelli culturali ed educativi validi per coltivare processi di inclusione di genere nelle organizzazioni e nei contesti di lavoro

The article summarizes the methodological key-issues and the salient learning features of a training path designed to support special needs preservice teachers in their professional learning (Kennedy, Billett, Gherardi & Grealish, 2015). A qualitative case study was conducted to identify the collaborative intervention frames that contributed to fostering critical reflections that are considered transformational. The experience was conducted in an Italian university and involved the big classes of preservice teachers that, in the academic year 2016-2017, were engaged into mandatory laboratories within the Training Path for Qualifications as Special Needs Teachers. One hundred and forty preservice teachers participated in the laboratories. They were divided in groups and each laboratory included approximately forty-five participants. The laboratories aimed to leverage collaborative methodologies through the use of practice-based learning methods (Billett, 2015). Data were collected through in-depth interviews, questionnaire, informal observations and content analysis of narrative journals produced by participants during and at the end of the laboratories. Findings describe the preservice teachers-perceived transformations in their attitudes and beliefs about being inclusive teachers and change agents in schools, as well as collaborative methods they identified as key for development of inclusive mindsets.

The article analyzes the learning paths, the organizational devices and the system actions taken aimed at the development of a didactics for employability within the Teaching & Learning Center (TLC), at University of Siena. The Teaching & Learning Center is a research and training center founded within the Santa Chiara Lab, a hub space for supporting the contamination between multidisciplinary research projects and the meeting between students, teachers and entrepreneurs. We would like to explore (a) how university centre for innovation can design and integrate learning paths and curricula for promoting the acquisition of practical skills useful for future professionals; (b) which methods and strategies are able to accompany professional development processes in university students; (c) which organizational supports are useful to promote sustainable didactic innovation in center for Teaching & Learning in Higher Education

The article offers a critical review of the tools available to evaluate transformative learning process and outcomes. In the literature, there are different approaches to validate and use these tools, confirming that Transformative Learning Theory is a multi-layers theory. We would like to: 1) show the state of the art of assessment perspectives in TLT; 2) define a framework to categorize them; 3) depict a possible evolution of TL assessment approaches. Starting from this backdrop, in the second section of the article, we describe how and to what extent an on-line tool (Doctors’ Perspective Inventory) has been constructed and adapted to manage continuing educational activities for doctors in the framework of the transformative learning theory and professional development. The DPI is a quantitative, multi-language and self-respondent survey based on a Likert scale that is grounded on the TPI model (Teaching Perspective Inventory, Pratt, 1998). The thesis we will present is that the administration of this tool could support to plan organizational devices and transformative learning paths for professional development of community of practitioners within medical institutions

The transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1991) asserts that the way we see the world is the result of perceptions of our experiences. According to Mezirow (1991), we develop habitual expectations based on past experiences. We expect things to be as they were before, or we used to uncritically assimilate prospects of our social, community and culture. These perspectives are distortions, stereotypes and prejudices. They guide our decisions and our actions until we come across a situation that is not consistent with our expectations. At that point, we can reject the discrepant perspectives or enter into a process that could lead to a transformation. It creates a transformative learning when people have a reshaping, a change in the meaning perspective with which we relate to life, to experience, to ourselves and to the world, and this change leads to new ways of thinking and above all new ways of acting. However, how can we evaluate the process and the outcomes of this change, so deep as to involve the frames of meaning rooted in us? The article offers a review of the main instruments and surveys (see Stuckey, Taylor, Cranton, 2013) for the evaluation of the process and of the outcomes of learning activities and experiences that may be conceptualized as transformative learning experiences. To be included in the present survey review, the questionnaire would need to (a) build on Mezirow’s transformative learning definition, (b) represent the instrument of an empirical study with a methodology section, (c) be written in English language. Particularly, based on these requirements, four instruments are analyzed and compared: the first is Kembers’ Critical Reflection Questionnaire, a 16-question, fourscale questionnaire, the Reflection Questionnaire, to measure "the extent to which students engage in reflective thinking in professional preparation courses" (Kember et al., 2000, p. 392). The second is the LAS (Learning Activities Survey, King, 2009) questionnaire. The multiple choice and open answers questionnaire developed by the research group of Professor King, University of South Florida is based on the theory of the ten steps precursors to transformative learning (King, 2009). The third questionnaire is the Transformative Learning Survey (Stuckey, Taylor, Cranton, 2014), a 112-item survey that assesses the outcomes and processes of engaging in transformative learning in any context. There are four scales that describe the outcomes of transformative learning and 15 scales that describe the various ways in which transformative learning can occur. The fourth is the VALUE rubric (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) (AACU, 2013), whose variation Student Transformative Learning Record (Barthell et al., 2010) has been created by the Association of American Universities and Colleges for the assessment of students’ own authentic work, produced across their diverse learning progressions and institutions, to determine whether and how well students are meeting graduation level achievement in learning outcomes that both employers and faculty consider essential. The VALUE rubric may be useful for the assessment of formal and informal learning by students: its utility can be highlighted considering the theory of transformative learning as a methodological framework for teaching and learning processes, not as theorethical concept. The instruments discussed have relevant features and limits: they represent the effort of going beyond the qualitative retrospective approach and to find indicators for the evaluation of transformative process and the critical reflection engaged by people (students or professionals) in their learning experiences. However, it must be paid thoughtful attention in adfirming during a class, a course, a program that a real authentic transformative learning process happens. The adoption of mixed-methods approach may overcome the limits of exclusively quantitative or quaiitative approaches.

Obiettivo del testo è di proporre il Teatro dell’Oppresso, le sue metodologie e le sue tecniche, all’interno dei contesti accademici e universitari come dispositivo pedagogico per mettere in discussione i modi di pensare e di agire, per sviluppare consapevolezza delle oppressioni esterne e interiorizzate e per creare le condizioni per promuovere apprendimento trasformativo con la revisione delle prospettive di significato psicologiche, epistemologiche e sociolinguistiche.

This article is about a still-in-progress research experience that explores the transformative potential of the methods of Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. In this exploratory study, more than 60 students were involved in experential workshops with the Theatre of the Oppressed within the setting of university classroom. The aim was to adopt the methodologies and the techniques of Forum Theatre and of Journal Theatre as educational tools to promote reflexivity and transformation in undergraduate students. The results of the analysis of the study confirmed researchers’ hypothesis, showing empirically that the Theatre of the Oppressed could be a useful educational practice not only in informal educational contexts, but specially in formal university contexts.