no. 41 - Educational ethics and secondary school

In the wake of the renewed debate around the secondary school, some major questions have been raised once again on the ethical-educational status of this school level for a pedagogical analysis. While it is true that secondary school remains for many the ultimate achievement of education, its (purely? strictly?) pedagogical horizons are not as univocal. Regardless of the course of study, in fact, and its corresponding functional role as an apprenticeship or as an intellectual training, the partition between different social conditions and the inherent social reproduction have ended up making the school itself an economical-political, and only very marginally pedagogical, issue. 

On the other hand, when the nexus between pedagogical-foundational theorisation and methodological-didactic praxis in the sphere of cultural elaboration is loosened, the vast field of secondary education also runs the risk of losing the ethical-social reasons for educating. Given the fact that secondary school education is not always conceived and acted upon as education for sociability, understanding of the world and self-building, or the enhancement of multifaceted contexts and the understanding of the complex heterogeneity that characterises the lives of preadolescents and adolescents,  it thus ends up coinciding either with instrumental learning or the ethical-pedagogical commitment of each individual teacher.

Notwithstanding the renewed call to account for the public, institutional and cultural functions of secondary school, and in view of the accelerated social and cultural changes that imbue our time, what education is being called upon to exercise its formative action? Towards which ethical, cultural and citizenship horizons is it headed?

Furthermore: can the intensification of the public demand for educational intervention on preadolescents and adolescents be read not only as a seismograph of a widespread need, but also as an opportunity for a pedagogical reflection on the status of secondary school? And around which topic areas can the educational responsibility concerning teachers and students be defined?

Submissions can be related to the following lines of thought:

- the role of pedagogical epistemology for secondary school;

- pedagogical ethics in school;

- educational ethics for preadolescents and adolescents;

- educational ethics for secondary school teachers;

- the cultural and political role of education in secondary schools;

- high-complexity contexts, intercultural practices and ethical-educational perspectives;

- education to responsibility of adolescents in school and out of school;

- personality formation of adolescents in and out of school;

- critical analysis of the socio-cultural changes that have affected and are still affecting the education-schooling relationship;

- historical-pedagogical, literary, social samples of educational commitment in or for secondary school;

- models of first-grade secondary school;

- comparative analyses of Italian and foreign secondary schools;

- adolescence and youth: ethical-pedagogical transitions.

 

Keywords: secondary school; pedagogical ethics; educational responsibility; pre-adolescence; adolescence.

 

Publication: beginning of May 2025
Submissions deadline: December 10th 2024
Journal approval: within January 10th 2025
First peer review’s outcome: within February 20th 2025