Experiences of Education for Democratic Citizenship in Italian Schools in Recent Years: Research Lines

Over the last few years Italian schools have been particularly called upon to make a renewed commitment to education for democratic citizenship (EDC) 1 . These stimuli have come both from within, from the context, and from above. From the inside it was, above all, changes in the school population towards a multiethnic and multicultural population that spurred the rethinking and redesigning of EDC, over and beyond civic education 2 and the participation in management that had characterised the period following the issuing of the 1974 decrees on school democracy. The glocal context, with its technological and economic changes (globalisation), has gradually become an increasingly more important interlocutor of the didactic planning of autonomous schools (since 1998) through interactions with local bodies, private organisations operating in the social field, NGOs and voluntary associations, with international institutions and bodies, particularly European ones with which schools have established reactive and proactive relations and partnerships in which issues of the education of citizens – and not just of students – are fundamental. However, an important role in catalysing the innovation processes has also been played from above, by policy decisions, central/national ministry initiatives and by the actions of international organisations