Is the school a democratic learning environment? a research project on the whole-school approach (WSA) to CCE

This contribution presents the first findings of the PRIN project “The school as a democratic learning environment: promoting a whole-school approach to civic and citizenship education in the first cycle of instruction”, created in collabora-tion between the University of Rome LUMSA, the University of Bologna and the University of Verona. The project aims at fostering civic and citizenship educa-tion and democratic learning environments through the adoption of a whole-school approach in the first cycle of instruction and includes two specific objec-tives: 1) Conducting an in-depth analysis about the dimensions of the whole-school approach in six first cycle schools through multiperspective case studies; 2) Providing the six schools with continuing professional development (CPD) using the Teacher Professional Development Research (TPDR) in order to im-plement the WSA for CCE in all the aspects of school life. The contribution will present the initial findings of the multiperspective case studies (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003), carried out in schools in Spring 2024, highlighting the challenges in measuring the multidimensionality of CCE at the school level.