The transition to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic uncovered criticalities in the participation of students with special educational needs. The BESt-DaD project responded to these difficulties by developing a user-friendly online platform aimed at accommodating these students' neurocognitive profiles, ultimately promoting inclusion.…

This book examines critically major issues confronting human rights implementation in schools, both locally and globally. It analyzes the challenges that different societies are confronted with, as they attempt to implement, protect and defend democracy, cultural diversity and human rights in schools. The book also documents human rights…

Italy has recently and rapidly become a country of immigration with an increase in school contexts, especially of second-generation children, leading to the need to deal with the issue of inclusion. This contribution aims to enclose the scientific literature that addresses the inclusion of children with a migrant background within the national…

In the last year a new virus (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease caused by it (COVID-19) has quickly spread around the world, leading the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency and, then, a global pandemic status. The strategies adopted by many countries to reduce the impact of the pandemic were mainly based on social distancing…

The paper reports the first results of an experience of university teaching innovation in progress. It is based on multiple means of "Engagement", "Representation", and "Action & Expression" in the framework of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach. The action repeats, with some improvements, a previous…

Purpose: The aim of this article is to examine the perspectives, experiences, roles and values of Italian primary school principals regarding the inclusion of migrant children. Design/methodology/approach: The method of the study is qualitative and consists of a semi-structured interview, which was carried out with 17 primary school principals and…

Italian legislation requires that all pupils with special needs be integrated in regular classes through cooperation between the class and special education teachers. After school closure in February 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers had to work together to arrange online inclusive activities for all the pupils in their classes. The…

Background: Italy is internationally known as a Country with a longstanding "tradition" of inclusive education. Objective: Aim of the paper is to provide a frame on the educational policies that, since 1970s, have steered the school system according to a "fully inclusive" model, highlighting the instruments of teaching-learning…

The current study analysed teachers' methodologies, practices and needs to promote the integration of newly arrived migrant/refugee pupils in educational contexts. Twentynine Italian primary and middle school teachers answered a qualitative survey analysed with ATLAS.ti software. In analysis, seven categories emerged: teaching values and beliefs;…

The study of inclusion models has regained attention in light of recent migratory phenomena. In this context, research in the area of second language (L2) teaching methodologies occupies a central role because it examines the most effective teaching approaches to promote the learning of a language that will be instrumental in the inclusion of the…

Immigration in recent years has dramatically increased, especially in Europe. Countries have been coping with it in different ways, and this suggests that certain policies and approaches may work better than others. As a fact, a successful integration starts with the education system. This study investigates how the teacher's approach toward his…

In this short article, the authors focus on religious and spiritual education's potential to offer social and spiritual inclusion for students with a disability. They take the view that the religious and spiritual education teacher in such situations is positioned better when seeing such teaching as a special vocation. They use Italy as the case…

The inclusion of pupils with visual impairment, within Italian mainstream schools, is an area of interest for the field of special education that is involved in identifying the most effective teaching strategies to promote the teaching-learning process. The perceptive difficulties that the pupils with visual impairment encounter in the first step…

We present an experience of digital storytelling conducted as part of a course for initial teacher training. The students of a special education course produced a digital story as partial fulfillment of their distance learning assignment. We describe the structure of the work completed by the students and discuss the results of a questionnaire…

The American Association for Adult Continuing Education Conference Theme Adaptability, Flexibility, and Sustainability--Adult Education in Dynamic Times is a reflection of the association's global commitment to Transforming Lives and Communities across the spectrum. For the past three years, the American Association has worked to codify and…