CITIZED: Policy Workshop “Citizenship Education in Italy: challenges and opportunities” in Bologna

On June 12th 2023, as part of the activities of the ERASMUS+ CITIZED project, the Policy Workshop in Italy, entitled “Citizenship Education in Italy: challenges and opportunities” took place in Bologna.

The event was open to researchers, students and academics, local and school authorities, teachers, school leaders and, in general, associations and citizens interested in the topic. Some speakers intervened in the first part of the event: Patrizio Bianchi – Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Ferrara, UNESCO Chair of “Education, Growth and Equality,” former Minister of Education; Raffella Curioni – delegate for schools of ANCI Emilia-Romagna and Councillor of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia; Annalisa Quinto – University of Bologna, UNESCO Chair in Global Citizenship Education; Federica Manzoli – University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Ithaca project. Following these talks, participants were able to visit the school area of the Golinelli Foundation (School of Ideas). Once the visit was over, Claudio Dondi presented the results of the CITIZED project and the activity of the second part of the workshop, which consisted of a working group session. The participants could choose which questions they would like to discuss among the following: 1. How to raise school and local community awareness of the mission of citizenship education? 2. How to help teachers develop the social and relationship skills of citizenship? 3. How and why to assess civic skills? The discussion was very fruitful and led to a set of key issues that will be soon integrated in a comprehensive report together with the series of proposals that emerged in the other policy workshops. All the proposals will therefore lead to a set of policy recommendations as the project foreseen.