Sguardi adolescenti sulla povertà educativa minorile. Un’esperienza di Student Voice Research

In 2014 Save the Children Italia defined child educational poverty as the depriving of children of all ages of the possibility to learn, experiment with, develop and give free rein to their abilities, talents and aspirations. The construct has been detailed over the years, progressively shifting the focus from deprivation to potential learning, even in non-cognitive dimensions. At the same time, indices have been proposed to measure the phenomenon. But what is educational poverty for adolescents? Do the indicators selected over time measure dimensions perceived as a priority by minors? A research experience inspired by the Student Voice movement collected the voices of 121 adolescents from Fiorenzuola d’Arda (PC) in April and May 2021. Without pretending to be representative and exhaustive, the article introduces the evolution of the educational poverty construct, then explores images, experiences and meanings attributed to it by boys and girls, as well as directions of meaning suggested by their “adolescent gaze” in order to prevent and counteract the phenomenon in its multiple dimensions.