L'educazione non formale in Italia. Teorie, politiche, pratiche ed esperienze nel framework delle politiche giovanili europee

Abstract

In the last three decades, European initiatives relating to the world of youth policy underline the crucial role of the Learning Continuum as an articulated process in which the three dimensions of education (formal, informal and non-formal) are increasingly understood as cogs that require a synergistic and combined action. Starting from this reference framework, the work aims to take the non-formal as a reference area, showing through the articulation in theories, policies, practices and experiences, the different declinations that this dimension has taken in Italy as well as the European and international contexts. The work opens with a theoretical reconstruction of the debate on non-formal education in the broader framework of the sociology of education. The attempt is to show its progressive structuring, while highlighting the contours of a debate characterized by discontinuity, intermittence, if not - at times - by “improvisation”, albeit within territorial scenarios and contexts - first of all Italy - in whose “experiences” of non-formal education have characterized significant historical episodes and moments. After outlining the reference scenario and reconstructing the different perspectives of analysis of non-formal education, the dissertation focuses on the contribution of European youth policies to the “(re) discovery” of non-formal education. It should be noted that what appeared to the theoretical debate as a “nebula with still faded borders”, has taken on an increasingly important role in the European context in the Youth Policy interventions of the European institutions, which have attracted its attention and the relevance in the broader framework of contemporary educational processes. Along this line, part of the work was dedicated to a survey of the legislation and documentation of European importance in the field of non-formal education and youth policies, carried out at the Youth Department of the Council of Europe (headquarters of the Youth Partnership between the Council of Europe and the European Union) in Strasbourg, at the European Youth Center in Strasbourg and at the library of the Directorate General “Education, Youth, Sport and Culture” of the European Commission in Brussels. A twofold work was carried out in the aforementioned institutions: on the one hand, an in-depth study of the documentary research which substantiates the second chapter of the work; while on the other, a first empirical study through the administration of semi-structured interviews to the heads of the aforementioned institutions involved in the management processes of youth policies. The Second Part of the research aims to analyze the experiences of non-formal education in Italy starting from the framework of European youth policies. Through the “Erasmus + Project Results” platform of the European Commission, a mapping of the non-formal education projects carried out in Italy by organizations that have submitted requests for funding in the framework of the Erasmus+/Youth in Action actions was carried out... [edited by Author]