OFFICINA 2020

The “Officine” are conferences with panel discussions that the research group Social Studies of Science, Education, Communication of the Istitute for Research on Population and Social Policies of the National Research Council of Italy – CNR-IRPPS organizes annually together with the Ministry of Education – MI. They involve scholars and social actors - teachers, students, public decision makers, researchers, companies and associations active in the local area - in a reflection on strategic issues of education and educational policies which change from session to session. In the 2020 edition, the temporal perspective of the reflections is expanded up until 2050, in collaboration with UNESCO Futures of Education initiative, to contribute to the national and international debate on the futures of education and to produce recommendations and tools for reflection for the International Committee of UNESCO and for the Italian national context.

The “Officina 2020: Education and Futures” takes place online, due to the COVID-19 emergency, and consists of panel discussions – “virtual tables” - aimed at promoting the exchange of experiences and the co-creation of knowledge with the contribution of different social actors such as researchers, teachers, students, policy makers, associations and scientific communicators.

In particular, scenarios are shared on the purposes of education and competences up to 2050, considering the dimensions of uncertainty linked both to the fragility, complexity and interconnection of each and every element of our planet - which can arise in crises and emergencies - and to the peculiarity of “post-normal” knowledge, characterized by uncertain facts, values called into question, high interests at stake and the urgency of the decisions to be made. Specific space is dedicated to the role of the school and to the opportunities of foreign language teaching – “Content and Language Integrated Learning” (CLIL) - in rethinking the issues of local, European and global citizenship to promote environmental, social and economic sustainability. Another specific space is dedicated to the role of the school and the opportunities of “science education” in building future scenarios of scientific citizenship through the integration between art and science, with a focus on the methodology of “global science opera” (the creation of a musical work on scientific topics with the collaboration of schools from a range of different countries).