DigiPE is a five-year research project funded by the Italian Science Fund (Fondo Italiano per la Scienza – FIS 3). It investigates how parents acquire knowledge, learn strategies, and (co-/de-)construct pedagogical and cultural models related to their role, caregiving responsibilities,… Leggi tutto and children’s growth and wellbeing through digital ecosystems made up of apps, websites, social media platforms, and generative artificial intelligence tools. Conceptualizing these environments as everyday spaces of informal learning, the project examines both the epistemic processes through which parents acquire, evaluate, reinterpret, and co-construct knowledge about parenting, and the deontic dynamics through which normative and neoliberal models of “good” parenting are reinforced, negotiated, or contested across different practices of digital content consumption and production. Adopting a systemic perspective and a mixed-methods design combining a national survey, longitudinal qualitative interviews, and digital ethnography, DigiPE explores contemporary parents’ learning experiences during the transition to parenthood and throughout early childhood (0–8 years). Expected outcomes include research-based theoretical frameworks on the formation of parenting knowledge and identity; open-access resources for parents and professionals in education and healthcare; recommendations for the development of more ethical and inclusive digital environments; and increased public awareness of the role of digital media and generative artificial intelligence in contemporary caregiving practices.

Creating inclusive schools is one of the main targets of European Institutions. Most existing research and interventions have been focused on pupils, on creating and evaluating programs that protect or promote diversity in classrooms. Much research remains to be done… Leggi tutto on teaching staff. Breaking Roles in Education Among Teachers (BREATHE) intends to increase knowledge about ‘breakers’:males breaking through the glass doors of gender roles in early education and challenging the regenderization of care and teaching professions. Despite gender mainstreaming and the fact that the involvement of men in early childhood education and teaching professions is one of the priorities of European Institutions, statistical data describe a clear shortage of male educators and teachers, with a gender gap that has widened in the last decade. BREATHE will investigate breakers who work in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and primary schools, with a particular focus on breakers belonging to minorities. Italy, with one of the lowest rates of breakers in Europe, and Norway, with the highest one, but facing a dramatic enrollment decrease in teaching education, will be compared through an interdisciplinary and multilevel methodological and theoretical approach. The aim of the project is to identify elements that could promote the undertaking of a career in early education among males and to investigate whether a more diverse teaching staff increases the level of inclusiveness of schools, as democratic institutions, in a diverse society. BREATHE will map breakers’ professional careers, investigate their personal and professional experience in terms of identity and professional role negotiation, and collect inclusive pedagogical practices and strategies. Creative and visual methods will integrate classical ones and will be used both as sources of data and for dissemination of research results both in the academic context throught scientific pubblications and in civil society and schools, thanks to a vocational and recruitment toolkit.