Session Information
99 ERC SES 03 I, Communities, Families, and Schooling in Educational Research
Paper Session
Contribution
The present work, which is part of a larger doctoral dissertation project, stems from a series of questions regarding the reality of the Italian Primary School experienced by the researcher herself in the dual role of teacher and parent. The critical issues related to the participation of families in school life as well as the apparent lack of incisiveness of the Primary School in making a difference for those children who come from poor educational backgrounds, raised a number of questions about the underlying motivations behind the two phenomena and a possible correlation between the school-family co-responsibility variable and the fight against educational poverty in the Primary School. The main questions that have emerged are:
What are the beliefs, motivations, preconceptions, and emotions that shape the relationality of teachers and parents?
Through building a meaningful school-family dialogue in primary school, is it possible to trigger virtuous mechanisms to counter educational poverty?
A traditional literature review and empirical research were conducted to answer the research questions.
In this regard, after the literature review of publications related to both educational poverty and school-family educational co-responsibility, this study attempts to suggest a possible way forward that puts back at the center: dialogue, openness to the other's point of view, the generative resources of families (Amadini 2013, 2018, 2019; Maia, 2022) as well as the capabilities of each person (Sen, 1990, 2014; Nussbaum, 2006, 2011, 2014) as necessary and no longer procrastinable premises for concrete projects and actions that counter educational poverty, at school. A major source of theoretical inspiration for this work is the Reggio Children Approach (Edwards, Gandini, Forman, 2017), which makes family and community participation a foundation of its pedagogical thinking and educational action in the 0-11 range.
The complexity of the new social and family contexts, the recent pandemic and a widespread crisis of values represent, in general, a challenge for school worldwide. In Italy, the Primary school, in particular, due to a kind of its intrinsic conformation, shows, with some evidence, how complex it is for the actors involved in the educational process to be able to enter into relationships and create positive synergies and shared planning (Dusi, 2009, 2011, 2019, 2022; Epstein, 2018; Pati, 2011, 2019).
In this paper, through empirical research, we investigate school-family co-responsibility and its possible role in combating educational poverty by collecting the voices of parents, by collecting parents and teachers voices through online questionnaires and focus groups and by involving them in a shared micro-projectuality to be realized at school.
Method
In order to answer the research questions as postulated, it was necessary to resort to a type of inquiry that would draw its information from experience by giving voice to the protagonists of the context under investigation. The approach that considers knowledge inseparable from the knowing subject and is the basis of this work, is that of empirical phenomenology (Husserl, 1913; Scott, 1991; Sità, 2017). Following a phenomenological approach, a Mixed Method survey was used in order "to find the best possible answers to the question that originated the research itself" by combining quantitative and qualitative analysis (Mortari, Ghirotto, 2012). The basic idea of the Mixed Method is to be able to meet different research objectives, that is, to arrive at the explanation of factors on the basis of others and to understand in a deeper way some individual and/or collective dynamics. In this type of research all phases "constitute a single study and the two moments- qualitative and quantitative-cannot be separated" (Mortari, Ghirotto, 2012). This work applied an explanatory type strategy with sequential architecture, that is: it started with a first quantitative study followed by a second qualitative one to understand in depth what emerged in the first. The instruments used were: an online questionnaire for both parents and teachers to collect quantitative data and a couple of in-depth online focus groups (by category of participants) to collect qualitative ones. There were 49 completed questionnaires from teachers and 69 from parents in two different Primary Schools. One focus group per category was conducted in each school and one micro-project meeting between teachers and parents is being held for each school. The mixed-group micro-project phase (still ongoing) is also conducted online and recorded as a focus group activity. The use of the Mixed Method ensured, therefore, both a quantitative type of analysis on the recursiveness of motivations, feelings, attitudes or preconceptions regarding the themes investigated, and then cross-referencing them with other factors such as biographical data, geographic origin, family characteristics and so on; and a qualitative type of analysis that would allow us to explore and understand the meanings that the participants involved attributed to events and experiences related to school life and their participation as well as to the theme of educational poverty.
Expected Outcomes
Although the analysis and collection of data is still in progress, it is possible to make some preliminary observations about the fact that there are points of convergence in thinking between teachers and parents from which they can start to meet in a dialogical relationship. The transcripts of the focus groups are still being analyzed and show a shared desire to make the school-family partnership effective by moving beyond the biases and preconceptions that emerged in both the questionnaire and the separate group focus groups. The micro-project phase (still ongoing) is providing the ground for concrete experimentation with what educational co-responsibility means and how it can be placed at the service of combating educational poverty. Research questions are expected to be answered in a way that confirms the urgency for Italian primary schools to "open the doors" to families with a view to making them co-protagonists in the educational project concerning their children.
References
Amadini M. (2013). La generatività familiare: un impegno e una risorsa per la pedagogia. La Famiglia 47/257, 2013, pp. 132-147. Bourdieu P., Passeron J. C. (2006). La riproduzione. Per una teoria dei sistemi di insegnamento, Rimini: Guaraldi Dusi P., Pati L. (2011). Corresponsabilità educativa. Scuola e famiglia nella sfida multiculturale: una prospettiva europea, Brescia: Editrice La Scuola Dusi P. (2014). La corresponsabilità educativa tra famiglia e scuola, Pedagogia della Famiglia Dusi P., Addi-Raccah A. (2022). Time to rethink the teacher-family alliance?Central issues in the “pandemic” literature on home-school cooperation. Encyclopaideia. 26(63), 7–29 Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (2017). I Cento Linguaggi dei Bambini: l'approccio di Reggio Emilia all'educazione dell'infanzia. Edizioni junior. Epstein J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools. Routledge. Husserl, (1913), Idee per una fenomenologia pura e per una filosofia fenomenologica, trad. it, Torino Einaudi, 2002. Maia E. (2022). Servizi educativi 0-6 e cultura dell'infanzia. Riflessioni sul ruolo generativo delle famiglie, MeTis-Mondi educativi. Temi indagini suggestioni,12(1), 134-148. Mortari L., Ghirotto L. (a cura di), (2019). Metodi per la ricerca educativa, Roma: Carocci Editore Nussbaum M. (2006). Coltivare l’umanità, Roma: Carocci Editore Nussbaum M. (2014). Creare capacità, Bologna: il Mulino Pati L. (2019). Scuola e famiglia. Relazione e corresponsabilità educativa, Brescia: Morcelliana Rossi-Doria M. (2022). Povertà educativa e comunità educanti, Sicurezza e scienze sociali, 2/2022, pp 45-59 Save the Children (2014). La lampada di Aladino. L’indice di Save the Children per misurare le povertà educative e illuminare il futuro dei bambini in Italia, Roma Save the Children (a cura di C. Morabito) (2016). La povertà educativa in Italia: una emergenza silenziosa, Ventiduesimo rapporto sulle Fondazioni di origine bancaria, pp. 306-324, Roma Save the Children (2018). Nuotare contro corrente: povertà educativa e resilienza in Italia, Roma Save the Children (2022). Impossibile. Costruire il futuro di bambine, bambini, adolescenti. Ora, Roma Scott, J. W. (1991). The evidence of experience. Critical inquiry, 17(4), 773-797. Sen A. (1990). La libertà individuale come impegno sociale, terza edizione 2007, Bari: Laterza Sen A. (1999/2014). Lo sviluppo è libertà, Milano: Edizioni Mondadori Sità C. (2012). Indagare l'esperienza: l'intervista fenomenologica nella ricerca educativa, Roma: Edizioni Carocci Tassan, M., & Lanzi, D. (2022). Le culture delle famiglie. Genitorialità e partecipazione nei servizi educativi per l’infanzia di Reggio Emilia. Educazione interculturale, 20(1), 1-12
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