Is The School A Democratic Learning Environment? A Research Project On The Whole-School Approach (WSA) To CCE

This contribution presents the first findings of the PRIN project “The school as a democratic learning environment: promoting a whole-school approach to civic and citizenship education in the first cycle of instruction”, created in collaboration between the University of Rome LUMSA, the University of Bologna and the University of Verona. The project aims at fostering civic and citizenship education and democratic learning environments through the adoption of a whole-school approach in the first cycle of instruction and includes two specific objectives: 1) Conducting an in-depth analysis about the dimensions of the whole-school approach in six first cycle schools through multiperspective case studies; 2) Providing the six schools with continuing professional development (CPD) using the Teacher Professional Development Research (TPDR) in order to implement the WSA for CCE in all the aspects of school life. The contribution will present the initial findings of the multiperspective case studies (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003), carried out in schools in Spring 2024, highlighting the challenges in measuring the multidimensionality of CCE at the school level.