Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
FrancoAngeli Journals

Articles/Articoli

Vol. 17 No. 1 (2026): Educating for Complexity: Intersectionality, Decolonial Approaches to Teaching, and Practices of Care in Education

Care as Polis: Interdependence, Justice, and Educational Transformation

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/ess1-2026oa22574
Submitted
aprile 15, 2026
Published
2026-07-28

Abstract

The article analyzes the theoretical and practical conditions through which care, understood not as an individual gesture but as a relational and collective dispositif, can become an organizing principle for educationally just contexts. Drawing on a critical reading of the ethics of care (Noddings, Tronto, Mortari) and its roots in the philosophical tradition (Aristotle, Heidegger), the author proposes an operational model centered on three axes: the recognition of vulnerability as a structural condition of learning; the construction of collective practices of interdependence; and the transformation of educational institutions through participatory devices. The essay discusses concrete pedagogical

through participatory devices. The essay discusses concrete pedagogical methodologies ‒ including Cooperative Learning, Restorative Practice, and Community-Based Learning ‒ analyzing their applicability in Italian schools and examining critical tensions and conditions of feasibility. Specific attention is devoted to the role of care in inclusion processes and to the recognition of difference as a pedagogical resource.

References

  1. Aristotele (2000). Etica Nicomachea (a cura di Mazzarelli C.). Milano: Bompiani.
  2. Baldacci M. (2006). Ripensare il curricolo. Roma: Carocci.
  3. Biasin C. (2012). Le transizioni. Modelli e approcci per l’educazione degli adulti. Lecce: Pensa MultiMedia.
  4. Butler J. (2017). Vite precarie. Contro l’uso della violenza in risposta al lutto collettivo (trad. it. a cura di Guaraldo O.). Milano: Meltemi (op. or. 2004).
  5. Comoglio M. (1999). Educare insegnando. Apprendere ad applicare il Cooperative Learning. Roma: LAS.
  6. Crenshaw K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1: 139-167.
  7. Dewey J. (2014). Esperienza e educazione. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore (op. or. 1938).
  8. Favaro G. (2011). A scuola nessuno è straniero. Firenze: Giunti.
  9. Freire P. (2023). La pedagogia degli oppressi (a cura di Simeone D.). Milano: Vita e Pensiero (op. or. 1970).
  10. Gilligan C. (1987). Con voce di donna. Etica e formazione della personalità (trad. it. a cura di Bottini A.). Milano: Feltrinelli (op. or. 1982).
  11. Heidegger M. (1976). Essere e tempo (trad. it. a cura di Chiodi P.). Milano: Longanesi (op. or. 1927).
  12. Hooks B. (2020). Insegnare a trasgredire. L’educazione come pratica della libertà (trad. it. a cura di Feminoska). Milano: Meltemi (op. or. 1994).
  13. Ianes D., Travaglini A. (2013). Dal bisogno educativo speciale al potenziamento. Strategie e buone prassi inclusive. Trento: Erickson.
  14. Johnson D.W., Johnson R.T. (2009). An Educational Psychology Success Story: Social Interdependence Theory and Cooperative Learning. Educational Researcher, 38(5): 365-379.
  15. Mignolo W.D. (2011). The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke University Press.
  16. Mortari L. (2006). La pratica dell’aver cura. Milano: Bruno Mondadori.
  17. Mortari L. (2015). Filosofia della cura. Milano: Raffaello Cortina.
  18. Mortari L. (2019). Aver cura di sé. Milano: Raffaello Cortina.
  19. Noddings N. (2013). Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  20. Paris D., Alim H.S., a cura di (2017). Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World. New York: Teachers College Press.
  21. Santos B.D.S. (2021). Epistemologie del Sud. Giustizia contro l’epistemicidio (trad. it. a cura di Mazzolini S.). Roma: Castelvecchi (op. or. 2014).
  22. Scuola di Barbiana (1967). Lettera a una professoressa. Firenze: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina.
  23. Tronto J.C. (2013). Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice. New York: New York University Press.
  24. Tronto J.C. (2014). Confini morali: un argomento politico per l’etica della cura (trad. it. a cura di Riva N.). Parma: Edizioni Diabasis (op. or. 1993).
  25. Zembylas M. (2015). Pedagogy of Discomfort and Its Ethical Implications: The Ten-sions of Ethical Violence in Social Justice Education. Ethics and Education, 10(2): 163-174.
  26. Zehr H. (2015). The Little Book of Restorative Justice. New York: Good Books.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...