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Articles/Articoli

No. 2 (2025)

Representations and Meanings of the Individual, Personalized and Participatory Life Project: Pedagogical Perspectives from the Narratives of Parents and Young Adults with Disabilities

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/ess2-2025oa21204
Submitted
ottobre 6, 2025
Published
2025-12-11

Abstract

This article examines how the individual, personalised, and participatory life project (Italian Legislative Decree 62/2024) is understood and depicted in the narratives of parents and young adults with disabilities. Situated within the rights-based framework, the study employs a qualitative, narrative–participatory approach to explore how life projects are envisioned, experienced, and shaped in daily contexts. Thematic analysis of interviews reveals how desires, supports, and environments interact to influence local self-determination, making artistic and employment practices, relationships, and immediate networks tangible sites of the project. Parents and young people agree that the life project is not just about technical compliance but a practical fabric of relationships and meaningful choices, where quality is measured through participation, continuity, and social recognition. Narrative functions as both an epistemic and pedagogical practice that amplifies participants’ voices, produces context-specific knowledge, and guides the development of supportive environments, thereby transforming the rights paradigm into everyday educational practice.

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