Elena Pacetti

The current European agri-food and forestry (AFF) systems are perceived to be moving too slowly towards more sustainable agriculture, forestry, food and bio-based value chains. The European Green Deal and Farm to Fork (FtF) Strategy stress the importance of the sustainable transition of food systems that emphasize resilience and justice along food chains. In this direction, education and training (ET) are given a major role, constituting one of the pillars of the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) framework. This study aims to propose an extended version of the AKIS framework to focus on the transition of policies concerning the ET pillar and to use this framework as a conceptual background with which to identify strategies for the improvement of ET policies in the AFF sectors. Data collection was undertaken through a round of workshops, and the data were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. The results revealed that the need for a high-quality educational policy and the need to enhance collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovative learning methods were among the most important for the sector, where urgent changes in pace and an approach in ET are necessary for the entire value chain, from farm to fork. These results emphasize that pivoting the transition of ET systems toward achieving the Green Deal, FtF and new CAP objectives requires the development of policies that support student-centered and interdisciplinary education, while also being flexible and supported by non-formal and lifelong learning approaches.

Throughout history, toys have always represented an essential means to portray societies’ values and cultural identities, passing on morals, expectations, and traditions to the next generations. Gender stereotypes are present even in today’s toys, depicting fixed gender roles and conditioning children’s preferences in playing. The present study investigated three Italian television channels for children, to analyse to what extent gender stereotypes are conveyed through children’s toy advertisements. The findings indicate that gender biases are present in a large number of tv commercials, although a new trend of inclusive toys is gaining momentum, in ways that don’t limit children’s choices and predilection. Giocattoli, pubblicità e ruoli di genere: una ricerca su tre canali televisivi italiani per bambini. Nel corso della storia, i giocattoli hanno sempre rappresentato un mezzo essenziale per rappresentare i valori e le identità culturali delle società, trasmettendo morale, aspettative e tradizioni alle generazioni successive. Gli stereotipi di genere sono presenti anche nei giocattoli di oggi, raffigurando ruoli di genere fissi e condizionando le preferenze dei/lle bambini/e nel gioco. Il presente studio ha indagato tre canali televisivi italiani per bambini/e, per analizzare in che misura gli stereotipi di genere sono trasmessi attraverso le pubblicità dei giocattoli per bambini/e. I risultati indicano che i pregiudizi di genere sono presenti in un gran numero di spot televisivi, anche se una nuova tendenza di giocattoli inclusivi sta acquisendo importanza, in modi che non limitano le scelte e la predilezione dei/lle bambini/e.

I-CAN: Independence, Capability, Autonomy, iNclusion was an international cooperation project run in 2018-2021, which involved 15 selected Gaza Strip’s schools, whose objective was to promote the full inclusion of people with disabilities. The project was articulated in two main actions: the first was the establishment of an “Holistic and Innovative Centre”, created to support educators and families in the promotion of initiatives directed at building inclusive communities; the second was a qualitative research, which explored the implications that the lockdown and the forced transition towards technology-mediated communication had on school-family relationship.

Currently almost 99% of Italian teenagers own a smartphone and with it they can enter the world of the infosphere: this fact has profoundly changed the online habits of teenagers. The pedagogical literature grafted onto Media Education has highlighted the cognitive and relational opportunities favoured by smartphones and their use by adolescents. Which are today’s adolescent’s online media-practices? In which terms these practices have an impact on adolescents’ socialisation? This contribution intends to explore these questions and focus attention on the ways in which these devices are managed by teenagers on a personal level, offering a descriptive picture of the media practices activated in the context of the reticular society for the school and family context and consequent reflections on identity and on the sociability of adolescents. The research involved nine upper secondary schools with different curricula in the Metropolitan City of Bologna (1657 students, age 14–19) in school year 2020/2021. The data collected through questionnaires and focus groups highlight how technologies and social media play a role of fundamental importance not only as daily mediators in the relationships of young adolescents but also as a space for negotiation of their identity. And this role was crucial for their well-being during periods of lockdown due to Covid-19.

Mailing lists, social networks and group chats have become the stage of a very wide spectrum of formal and informal relationship dynamics where conflicts, discussions and misunderstandings are very common. Parents, school administrators and teachers experience situations which are often difficult to manage and where the boundaries between the private and the professional sphere are shady and often crossed. These complex dynamics, even more, complicated if one considers that schools are benefitted from families from different cultural backgrounds, are extremely difficult to investigate because they take place in border-lined spaces which often escape from the gaze of the school policies of the regulations and scientific debate. The research hereby presented, which has been in development for 18 months in a school institute in the metropolitan city of Bologna connoted by a very high degree of multicultural presence, aims to investigate how communicative exchanges mediated by digital contexts are able to influence the relational dynamics between teachers-teachers and parents-teachers.

This study focuses on a course belonging to the University of Bologna’s bachelor’s degrees ‘Expert in Social and Cultural Education’ and ‘Educator in Childhood Social Services’ called ‘Computer Science Lab–based course’, which aims to develop digital competences necessary for the educational profession. Before COVID-19, this face-to-face compulsory workshop-based course consisted of nine parallel teachings with different programmes and teachers. Due to the impossibility of providing regular lessons, teachers have been forced to revise their working methods by using different distance learning strategies. This paper aims to offer an understanding of the situation by analysing teachers’ and students’ perceptions collected through questionnaires in relation to the following aspects: most used and effective teaching strategies; technical, communicative and relational difficulties encountered by teachers and students; aspects related to distance learning methods and perception of the usefulness of the course for the educational profession.