Ricucire i margini nelle periferie urbane: l’esperienza del manifesto per l’educazione diffusa nel quartiere di Bagnoli (Napoli)

Abstract

The Bagnoli plain, the result of thousands of years of geological activity in the Phlegraean Fields, was home to a large steelworks for about a century until 1990, that impacted the population, influencing social and territorial dynamics and compromising the natural morphology, soil and air quality, with health and social consequences that still affect young people and adults today. After the plant was decommissioned, Bagnoli had to deal with the consequences: psychological and physical distress, and educational poverty. On the other hand, community and mutual aid initiatives have developed here more than elsewhere. The Caleidoscopio project was born out of these initiatives. Selected by the social enterprise Con I Bambini, it aims to launch and strengthen a socio-educational network in the area, in collaboration with local schools and various organisations in the area committed to preventing and combating early school leaving, with a particular focus on informal education as the main educational lever. The project has led to a strengthening of dialogue between trainers, participants and researchers, intertwining the suggestions that have emerged with a commitment to keeping the educational community engaged. Among the theoretical horizons that guided the reflections is the ecological conception of human development, a perspective in which social networks, places and experiences lived in the community become fundamental educational tools, contributing to the development of knowledge, skills, and prosocial attitudes. The dialogue took on the characteristics of a Community of Practice, which gave rise to the “Manifesto of Diffused Informal Education for the Bagnoli Educating Community”: a programmatic horizon through which to give continuity to the shared experience, to respond to territorial challenges in the socio-educational field, and to relaunch, at the policy level, a common and shared governance with a focus on learning and on vulnerable and marginalised individuals.