FAMT&L: a Teacher Professional Development Research

The term "Ricerca-Formazione (R-F)" is used in the Italian educational debate, although it has not acquired a shared definition among the various scientific currents. At international level, there is no real literal translation. The conceptual translation in English language could be “Teacher Professional Development Research”. The term R-F refers to a not well defined concept within the scientific debate in education; it can be traced back to different research traditions. First of all, the R-F refers its origin to the participating research (Mantovani, 1998) and to the more structured model of the Action-Research (Lewin, 1946), where the key elements are the sharing of researchers and actors and their commitment to change and social action. In the second instance, the concept of R-F was used in the current called Formative Educational Evaluation (Becchi, Bondioli, 1994; Bondioli, Ferrari, 2004) that considers the evaluation (of the contexts, curricula, programs) as an opportunity for self-assessment of actors actively involved in the processes and for their professional growth. Furthermore, in several cases, R-F is also considered as a process of individual professional growth (eg through autobiographical analysis tools). Within the CRESPI Center (Center of educational research on teacher professionalism http://crespi.edu.unibo.it/) of the University of Bologna, a theoretical idea of R-F has been discussed and defined starting from empirical research experiences carried out by CRESPI researchers in the field of teacher professionalism. The path of the FAMT&L Project can be related to this idea of R-F​