The Primary School from Challenges to Opportunities: The Role of Participatory Action-Research
Emanuela Guarcello University of Turin
Abstract
Action-research is a particular methodological approach to research on the basis of which the scientific rigour of the investigation is placed immediately both in dialogue with the real problems perceived by the parties involved and in service towards a concrete change of the problems themselves. One of its declinations is participatory action-research that has found space in different social and professional fields, including the school. Pedagogical studies, which classically represent the most authoritative knowledge in reference to the school experience itself, consider action-research to be one of the most promising forms of educational research because it works in -dialogic- ways and towards an end -change and therefore innovation- which represents the very essence of education. In the face of a reconstructed picture, two specific questions emerge today, precisely in the transition from the pandemic phase to the post-pandemic phase, about the contribution that action-research can bring in particular to the primary school -The first and most delicate area of human and cultural formation of the child- to transform the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic into opportunities. If action-research can be a good approach to innovating school practices also in the face of these new challenges, so that innovation itself is significant and effective: Does action-research itself need to innovate in order to be able to trigger change within a context that has altered not only because of the pandemic emergency but also in relation to the wider transformations that affect society today? With regard to what aspects, therefore, is it meaningful to start this process of innovation? Starting from these problematic spaces and in order to work on a reconstruction of possible answers to the questions raised, the present contribution is articulated around three main reflexive nests: participatory action-research in primary school, the question of participation and the question of the problem.