Community educational pacts in Italy: an interpretation of UNESCO’s new social contract for education?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The idea of a new social contract for education, as outlined in the UNESCO (2021) report on the Futures of Education, refers to the many instances of cooperation among communities and education systems around the world. In Italy, these experiences, commonly referred to as Community Educational Pacts, have gained increasing attention in recent years and have been seen as a potential response to the challenges affecting the Italian education system. This paper examines the theoretical underpinnings of the principle of education as a common good as the political framing for the new social contract for education. It then reviews the experience of school/community alliances in Italy, based on preliminary studies carried out by the National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research and the Forum on Inequality and Diversity. The paper ultimately discusses the extent to which these experiences can represent concrete opportunities for reimagining education and the school system grounded on the concept of education as a common good, thus providing a possible interpretation of the ‘new social contract for education’.