This paper explores and problematizes participatory processes within socio-educational services, for people with disabilities (PwD), managed by social cooperatives (SC). It intends to understand if and how many opportunities professionals must actively adhere to the governance of SC in which they work, highlighting any barriers that limit or prevent their full participation.

Since their birth in the 1980s, SC have combined the concept of business - with the characteristics of autonomy, risk, efficient use of resources and propensity for innovation - with multi-stakeholder governance, oriented by democratic values, to promote solidarity projects for fragile people (Borzaga & Sforzi, 2014; Spear, 2004). In fact, the governance concept refers to those mechanisms aiming to create cognitive and connective structures that allow processes based on interaction, negotiation and collaboration between the various social actors involved (Rhodes, 2007). The goal should be to respond to identified needs through collective and mutualistic actions.

Unfortunately, in recent years, SC are facing an involution that has led some of these organizations to develop an exclusive performance logic, through a strong standardization of the services offered, to pursue mainly economic objectives, thus losing the value of participatory dynamics, internal and with the surrounding community (Visentin and Dainese, 2021; Borzaga et al., 2019).

This crisis, of vision and organization too, reflects the one that is characterizing socio-educational services for PwD, which are called to evolve from an assistance logic, not very careful to support the emancipation and autonomy of users, to an inclusive one, attentive to differences and committed to build social innovation through generative processes that legitimize the contribution of all the actors involved (UN 2006; Phillips et al., 2015). Therefore, new co-creation spaces are necessary where, together with PwD and their families, professionals contribute to the organization's governance, advancing innovative proposals capable of building services characterized by a stronger sense of belonging (Brandsen et al., 2018).

However, to date, there is a lack of evidence in the scientific literature; in particular, a lack of empirical evidence on how professions training backgrounds and their attitude towards inclusion are related to their degree of perceived participation.

Consequently, the research goal was to investigate whether there were significant differences in the perception of governance based on specific demographic characteristics of the professionals (being a member or not of the social cooperative; educational qualification). Specifically, higher levels of governance satisfaction were hypothesized among cooperative members than non-members and professionals with at least a university degree compared to professionals with a diploma.

Furthermore, we intended to investigate whether attitudes towards inclusion and a lower perception of obstacles predicted general satisfaction with governance.

In order to measure attitudes toward inclusion, we use the semantic differential technique. It considers 13 bipolar pairs of adjectives (Nota et al., 2020) (e.g., rewarding-frustrating; pleasant-unpleasant; winning-losing; possible-impossible). These adjectives were used to specifically examine attitudes toward inclusion that could be achieved in the future (∝ = .85). Thus, two values representing positive aspects (higher values) and negative aspects (lower values) were calculated. Participants had to indicate their degree of agreement with each pair of adjectives on a 7-point Likert scale (1 indicated the negative extreme; 7 indicated the positive extreme). In order to analyze perceptions of obstacles, ten items were used to analyze what obstacles prevent the educational project from connecting with desires, aspirations, and 'existential questions' (Santilli et al., 2021). Some examples of obstacles are: 'the caring culture of the cooperative, the lack of resources (economic, aids...)'. Satisfaction with governance was investigated through a questionnaire (∝ = .91) composed of 4 items with a 4-point Likert scale (1 = "not at all"; 4 = "very much") and three open-ended questions. Items with a 4-point Likert scale assess whether people with disability and practitioners participate in governance processes (Ex: "Are people with disability satisfied with their participation in governance processes?"; "Are you satisfied with your participation in governance?"). The three open-ended questions investigate what participants believe are the barriers to participation in governance, how the cooperative supports them, and what the cooperative could do to encourage participation in governance. Sample item, "Are you satisfied with your participation in shaping the educational plan?" ( α =.87.1) (Nota and Santilli, 2021).

The questionnaires were submitted to a judgment sample of 147 professional operators enrolled in social and educational services, managed by social cooperatives, in the North of Italy (Mage= 42,35; DS= 10,65). The participants are members (78.9 %) and non-members (21.1 %) of the social cooperatives. As regards the types of projects in which they are involved, 44.9% work in daily care centres, and 27.9% work in housing communities and group apartments. One-way ANOVA and Bonferroni post-test analysis were used to analyse group differences based on role (member/no member), and educational level (diploma/bachelor's degree /master's degree). The association between general perceived satisfaction with governance, perception of obstacles and attitudes towards inclusion was evaluated by linear regression. The data indicate that satisfaction with governance is higher among people who are members of the social cooperative than among those who are not [F(1;142)=19.895; p=.001] and that it is higher among people who have a bachelor's degree than among those who have a high school diploma [(F1;142)=6.289; p=.017]. Furthermore, the attitudes toward inclusion and perception of obstacles have a significant impact on the satisfaction with governance level. Specifically, the model that considers attitudes towards inclusion and perception of obstacles as predictors of satisfaction with governance is statistically significant (p=.001) and explains 36% of the variance. Overall the results highlighted the importance to develop specific education programmes involving professionists through specific inclusive courses, so the social cooperative can become more committed to a cultural change, more attentive to inclusion and able to improve people's quality of life, and above all, social inclusion through the promotion of the value of cooperation with their governance.

Brandsen, T., Steen, T., & Verschuere, B. (2018) (Eds). Co-production and co-creation. Engaging Citizens in Public Services. Routledge. Borzaga, C., Calzaroni, M., Carini, C., & Lori, M. (2019). Structure and performance of Italian cooperatives: a quantitative analysis based on combined use of official data. Journal of Enterpreneurial and Organizational Diversity, 871, 65-83. http://dx.doi.org/10.5947/jeod.2019.004 Borzaga, C. & Sforzi, J. (2014). Social Capital, Cooperatives and Social Enterprises. In Christoforou, A., & Davis, J.B. (Eds.), Social Capital and Economics. Social Values, Power, and Social Identity. Routledge (pp.193-214). Nota, L., & Santilli, S., Inclusive Teaching. Arqus week conference, May 2021. Nota, L., Soresi, S., Di Maggio, I., Santilli, S., & Ginevra, M. C. (2020). Sustainable Development, in Career counseling and career education. Springer. Phillips, W., Lee, H., Ghobadian, A., O’Regan, N., & James, P. (2015). Social innovation and social entrepreneurship: A systematic review. Group & Organization Management, 40, 428–461. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601114560063 Rhodes, R. A. (2007). Understanding governance: Ten years on. Organization studies, 28, 1243-1264. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840607076586 Santilli, S., Di Maggio, I., Ginevra, M.C., Nota, L., & Soresi, S. (2021). La responsabilità sociale dei manager per la promozione di contesti lavorativi inclusivi e sostenibili. Convegno CNUDD, Un Ponte tra Università e Mondo del Lavoro per l'Inclusione e la Vita Indipendente. Spear R. (2004). Governance in Democratic Member-based Organizations. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, 75, 33-66. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8292.2004.00242.x United Nations (2006). Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). https://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convoptprot-e.pdf Visentin, S., & Dainese, G. (2021). Social Cooperatives and services for people with disabilities: building participation and generating connections for more inclusive communities. Italian Journal of Special Education for Inclusion, 9, 035-043. https://doi.org/10.7346/sipes-02-2021-04