After obtaining the title of PhD in Experimental Pedagogy (La Sapienza University of Rome), he held the role of university researcher from 2004 to 2013, and then held that of Associate Professor following the achievement of the national scientific qualification .
He has participated and participates in numerous funded research activities, as part of projects on inclusive processes in intercultural contexts (FAMI), on educational poverty in emergency contexts (Fund “With children”), on NEETs (PRIN Project, RomaTre Unit ). He has numerous publications to his credit, including monographs, curated articles, volume contributions and scientific articles in A-level journals, also with international impact. He is part of the scientific committee of prestigious magazines and series. He actively participates in the scientific debate also through intense conference activity at national and international level. In 2019 he won the SIPED Pedagogy Award for the volume “The trials of life. Promoting resilience in the educational relationship, Franco Angeli, Milan, 2016. Since 2020 he has been a member of the Board of the Italian Society of Pedagogy (SIPED).
Since 2018 he has held the national scientific qualification to hold the role of full Professor.
Main lines of research
Intercultural pedagogy: theoretical exploration and field investigations relating to the problems of intercultural pedagogy, with particular reference to the following themes: school inclusion of immigrant students, learning and teaching Italian as a second language, cultural and linguistic mediation, education of immigrant adults, racism and anti-racist education, also from a historical perspective.
Emergency pedagogy: theoretical exploration and field investigations relating to the problems of emergency pedagogy, as the last frontier of the pedagogical debate. After the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, the issues relating to the role of education in contexts marked by natural and environmental disasters, but also by socio-political emergencies were explored and developed. The research was aimed at studying the impact of emergencies and post-emergency problems on children and young people and at developing intervention perspectives in schools and extracurricular contexts. The research is also expanding to the topic of health emergencies (COVID-19) and to the factors of educational poverty and to issues relating to the development and support of individual and institutional resilience.
Educating in extreme conditions: the Shoah and the pedagogy of resilience: this third line of research allows us to trace numerous common threads between the first two. Against the background of human rights pedagogy and anti-racist approaches, we began to delve deeper into the work of educators and pedagogists (Korczac, Hirsch, etc.) who carried out exemplary activities in ghettos and extermination camps. The objective is to clarify the meaning of education as a factor of humanization and resilience even in the worst conditions in which the human subject can find himself.