Equilibrismi psico-pedagogici: sul confine sottile della povertà educativa

Psycho-pedagogical balancing acts: on the thin line of educational poverty This article draws its inspiration from the definition of the educational poverty construct (Save the Children, 2014) and the notion of capability (Sen, 1999/2000; Nussbaum, 2011/2012). Without claiming to be exhaustive, it is argued that educational poverty could be a source of incapacitation or disablement, translating into a lack of or reduced qualifying competences, such as cognitive, affective, emotional, communicative, relational, socio-economic ones, etc. Moreover, food for thought is offered on the balancing acts sometimes imposed on the growing individual by adult categorizations, in the face of already precarious balances in the manifestation of each person’s uniqueness. The reader is brought to ask: can adult pedagogical poverty and its subsequent educational deprivations have incapacitating or disabling outcomes? Are there forms of poverty and incapability caused by politics, culture, educational practices? What are the boundaries between the effects of educational poverty and those of a widespread tendency towards pathologization? Despite being aware that facing educational poverty is both a pedagogical and political issue (Lombardi, 2022), what paths can an educator follow today when working in materially and educationally impoverished contexts?