Technical, economical, and social changes place great demands on the qualification of professional forces in all areas of the national economy. The decisive foundations for these qualifications are built in vocational education. Vocational education is an investment in the future and one of the decisive pillars of the prosperity of every state in…

The health and social crisis caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has had an especially strong impact on the academic prospects of the most vulnerable populations in society. This paper focuses on the consequences of the current crisis in terms of their potential to negatively impact school disengagement and early school-leaving rates. First,…

Purpose: In the present paper we describe how civic and citizenship education takes place in Italy, trying to identify strengths and weaknesses, with the aims both of understanding the situation and of identifying possible measures for improvement. Methods: The methodology implies an analysis of the official guidelines by the Ministry in this…

Here we propose a conceptual distinction among "educazione," "istruzione" and "formazione" on the basis of the Italian socio-cultural heritage and we consider the role that teacher has historically assumed in this context. Then, we analyze the competences ascribable to the "teacher" today. Finally, we…

Migrant children may display problems of participation in school interactions with adults and peers, depending on their difficulties in speaking the host country's language and understanding its culture. This condition amplifies the general view of children as incompetent in producing and acting knowledge. This paper analyses video-recorded…

This paper begins with some general comments regarding the concept of participation in educative processes as it has developed in the preceding decades from a rights-based perspective, following the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In order to discuss the notion of participation, the authors introduce a…

Innovation is essential for the education sector. The ways in which curriculum decision making is organised reflects different implicit approaches on how educational systems pertain to promote innovation in education. Curriculum holds an outstanding place when seeking to promote innovation in education, as it reflects the vision for education by…

This article presents a brief analysis of teacher education in five European countries: Italy, Germany, England, Sweden and Finland. In the post-industrial world, the sense of teaching has profoundly changed, influenced by a rapidly evolving socio-economic context. The responses given by each country are different, but two tendencies emerge: on…

Virtual environments are able to extend the space of interaction beyond the classroom. In order to analyze how distributed cognition functions in such an extended space, we suggest focusing on the architecture of intersubjectivity. The Euroland project--a virtual land created and populated by seven classrooms supported by a team of…

Focuses on educational problems in Italy, with particular regard to the effect of various pieces of educational legislation on these problems. Various solutions are proferred and suggestions are presented for integrating research, experimentation, and supplementary teacher training. (DB)

In this volume, gender and schooling in the early years addresses a broad range of issues including, but not limited, to gender equity in education. We explore, for example, the complex world of play in Fromberg's chapter and are reminded that for young children, play involves issues of power and hierarchy in ways that parallel the role of gender…