The State of Educational Research in Italy

Maria Grazia Riva
Società Italiana di Pedagogia (SIPED)
SIPED – Italian Society of Pedagogy
March 2016, Berlin

Educational research is carried out in Italy at universities, research centres, and professional and cultural associations. There is not a great deal of financial support for research by public and private bodies. The State, regional governments and public and private foundations issue calls for grants but they are mainly for research in what are usually called the ‘hard’ sciences.

As far as educational research at university level is concerned, it has traditionally been divided into four areas: general and social pedagogy, history of pedagogy, didactics and special pedagogy, experimental pedagogy.

The area of GENERAL AND SOCIAL PEDAGOGY is the sector of education research which studies the theoretical-founding reasons and the methodological approaches of pedagogical knowledge relating to the subjects of education and the historical-social, cultural and organizational contexts of reference. More specifically, the area studies in depth the epistemological nature of pedagogy as the science of education for all and lifelong education, divided into a plurality of theories, models and methods of research. 
The theoretical, critical and planning nature of pedagogical knowledge merges with its social significance as knowledge “in action” and “in situ”, therefore it is open to contamination with the factuality of educational action. This leads to the wealth of names with which pedagogical knowledge shows its complexity: from infant to adult education, from gender education to intercultural education, from family pedagogy to the pedagogy of marginalization and social distress, from pedagogy of the school to pedagogy of work, from the philosophy of education to comparative pedagogy, from pedagogy of the environment to media education, from bio-pedagogy to neuro-pedagogy etc..

Studying its constitutionally open and plural nature, this subject cannot disregard the continuous and dialectic comparison with the other subject areas that make up the science of education, in the first place that of history, in order to dialectically and critically reconstruct the history of educational thought and institutions. In the same way, general and social pedagogy “dialogues” with the other areas of knowledge that form the tree of education science and, more in general, social sciences, including the plurality of the subject’s points of view with which to consider the common object  of study: the individual and society, as they are permanently evolving.

The area of the HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY in Italy is structured in a plurality of branches of study: from the history of pedagogical thought to the history of scholastic-educational institutions for young people and adults; from the history of educational methods and practices to the history of schoolbook publishing; from the history of special education to the history of female education; from the history of the teaching class to the history of vocational training; from the history of childhood to the history of universities; from the history of religious instruction to the history  of State pedagogy and to the educational processes underpinning Nation building.

Alongside research on the political-legislative side and archive sources, there is the study of scholastic-educational experiences in their concrete and daily dimension, in line with a historiographical approach that takes into account how they are interwoven with the wider socio-economic and cultural-religious context. The privileged sources, in this perspective, are the tools of teaching activity (textbooks, exercise books, registers), ego-documents (autobiographies, diaries) and individual and collective places of memory (physical and social spaces).

This area also includes comparative education and literature for children and young adults. The latter concentrates on methodological orientations which come from the epistemological effort aimed at asserting the specificity of this field of research which combines approaches typical of literary (and art) criticism with  interpretations from a pedagogical and historical viewpoint. The following are developed: branches of study which privilege the past (publications of epistolary sources, specific research on periodicals that are no longer published, biographical-critical reappraisal of significant writers and illustrators) using the literary document both for its intrinsic significance and for its value as historical-social evidence; research trends that are distinctly comparative, where work is on the text, highlighting the relations between literary genres, themes, countries of origin or between trends of the pedagogical thought and parallel experiences in children’s literature; lastly, there is growing attention on the picture-book as an object of critical-theoretical research.

The area of DIDACTICS AND SPECIAL PEDAGOGY in Italy includes theoretical and empirical research related to various fields of study. "General Didactics" refers to the study of the teaching-learning processes in educational and training activities in different contexts and at different stages in the  development, growth and evolution of the individual. "Educational Technology" and "Media Education" comprise the study of the techniques and the educational technologies used in general didactics, as well as in the presence of specific educational and training needs. "Special Education" is the area of studies, research and empirical evidence related to teaching methods and coping techniques in problematic situations and/or deficits. Strategies may include, but are not limited to, preventive and rehabilitative interventions as well as support to facilitate learning. It is related to "Special Pedagogy", which refers to the specific domain in educational research that investigates inclusive processes (such as in cases of migration, deviance, disability etc.), promoting and strengthening them. It also examines the pedagogical approaches to evaluate differences and the role of education for each and every student.

The EXPERIMENTAL PEDAGOGY sector includes scientific activity with an empirical-experimental approach on methodologies for the design and the evaluation of interventions in educational and training settings. In particular, the sector focuses on: the design of learning, educational and vocational guidance and cognitive enhancement environments, including with the support of technology (e-learning); the assessment of learning and school performance and the evaluation of education and training processes and systems. The sector also includes scientific activities inherent to ontological, epistemological, methodological and technical-operative issues of empirical educational research, with reference to both quantitative and qualitative approaches.