THE USE OF CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HERITAGE IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS BETWEEN SPACES, IDENTITIES, ATTITUDES, AND COGNITIVE WELL-BEING

 

Antonella Nuzzaci ¹

 

¹ Full Professor of Experimental Pedagogy, Department of Cognitive, Psychological, Pedagogical Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

 

1. INTRODUCTION

Cultural and environmental heritage is not always considered in its full educational potential and driving capacity to transform the skills and attitudes of children, young people, and adults. We often talk about it by emphasizing the role of those approaches that promote its educational role, starting from the experiences lived by individuals in contexts and environments that are also culturally, socially, and ecologically complex, but without referring to the set of skills needed to decode and interpret it. If competence is linked to the concept of situated knowledge and the way in which it becomes meaningful, relevant and coherent for the learner, and to the ability to mobilize different cognitive resources to cope with a typology of conditions and problems, then the latter could also concern the field of cultural heritage education, which has long been recognized as important for the development of a community at territorial level and for creating and restoring a sense of cultural belonging Nuzzaci (2018). However, this field, precisely because of the complexity of the tasks, the different aspects and knowledge involved from different sources and sectors (scientific, artistic, archaeological, anthropological heritage, etc.), the innumerable families of skills involved (visual-spatial and cognitive skills, solution strategies, etc.) and the social mediation behaviors, is not an easy one. It requires the possession of the widest possible range of high operational, cognitive, and strategic skills, as well as collaborative forms of planning that must enable the subjects to interact with the characteristics of the symbolic systems and apparatuses of culture. In fact, complex implementation situations require a creative approach to understanding and solving new problems and making decisions in emerging areas, as well as the ability to assign meanings and values to contexts that are changing so rapidly that they require constant revision of meaning and updating of competence. To better explain these aspects, some clarifications are indispensable. Learning about cultural heritage in its many forms is increasingly recognized as a crucial approach to reality, which, from an educational point of view, leads to the definition of new strategies that can be successfully applied at any level of education, with obvious benefits that include the development of a wide range of skills (from those of the meta-cognitive domain and higher-order processes to relational and social ones, from the improvement of knowledge to the motivation for knowledge itself). At the same time, heritage research becomes a strategy when it ends up establishing a link between methodology and explicit learning of the heritage, strengthening the research-education-learning nexus in specific formal, informal, and non-formal contexts. The encounter between cultural and environmental heritage and educational research in Italy has followed its own path, which over time has expressed an increasingly precise educational policy of the good, coming to understand it as a fundamental tool of knowledge capable of strengthening the cultural profiles of individuals. In this way, a synthesis has been achieved between learning and the good, which inevitably implies the capitalization of actions, cognitive, perceptive, social, and interpretative processes of the meaning of fulfilment and its cultural interactions. In this sense, the international context, especially in the 1990s, has marked a profound development and reorientation of studies in this sector, making an adequate collaboration between different disciplinary fields indispensable. This has led to a series of important clarifications regarding the definition of heritage education. In Italy, in the nineties, Laneve (1992) gave life to the conference organized in Foggia in 1990, a milestone in this sense, followed by the most recent national and international experiences Nuzzaci (2011), Nuzzaci (2012a), Nuzzaci (2012b), affirming how the teaching of cultural heritage is the study-production of appropriate “mediations” Laneve (2000) aimed at encouraging in every visitor-user, without distinction of age and/or social and cultural status, the learning of cultural and environmental heritage, which implies the acquisition of skills and the successful understanding Laneve (1992) of what is used. Today, this mediation also makes use of the use and experience of research conducted in the field of digital communication, which is intrinsically rich in semiotic modalities and resources to ensure a critical reflection on heritage Luigini & Panciroli (2018) and on the dynamics of awareness, cognition and training of participants in digitally mediated fruition processes with the idea of enhancing the effectiveness of the educational experience and decoding of the asset.

We will look at this level here to understand who and what we are referring to when we talk about skills, spaces, identity, and education in this sector. In fact, we could refer to many things, namely the skills of the person who uses the asset, the skills of the person who creates the educational proposal, the skills of the teacher who uses the cultural asset for educational purposes, the skills of the operator, the mediator or the expert in the sector who acts as a mediator of cultural mediation in the territory. However, in order to try to answer these questions, it is necessary to start from a fundamental question concerning the good and its relationship with learning. The good, in all its forms, can become a dimension of learning, also in view of the profound changes that are affecting current alphabetic processes and that are gradually shifting literacy towards multiple and multimodal dimensions Nuzzaci (2011), Nuzzaci (2012), Anstey & Bull (2006). From the perspective of educational innovation, the good is in fact a source and a tool capable of promoting the development of more demanding educational actions, based on the knowledge and skills of those who, in different capacities, work between training and territory in the various educational and cultural institutions. It contributes to the qualification of the educational intervention by directing the “acting” towards the exercise of conscious and responsible choices, characterized by an educational intentionality capable of influencing the interpretative repertoire of those who use the asset for cognitive purposes.

The importance of possessing a grammar, a vocabulary, and appropriate cultural tools, both theoretical and technical, which enable everyone (child, adolescent, and adult) to enjoy the cultural and environmental heritage in a conscious and responsible way, requires careful skills of analysis and cultural educational planning. It is the same tool that enables individuals to understand how certain changes have altered the conditions of access to cultural heritage, its specific character, and its plurality, in line with the changes that have affected society as a whole, in particular the ongoing process of cultural democratization. And even if there has not always been a real tradition in this sense in Italy, that is to say, not in all periods have appropriate conditions and coherent educational policies of the good been achieved, we must not forget that recently we are witnessing a radical change in the situation, born of the desire to create a favorable terrain for the encounter between education and cultural heritage. Suffice it to say that since Law no. 107 of 13 July 2015 - known as the “Good Schools Law” - which came into force on 16.07.2015, and the MIUR-MIBACT Memorandum of Understanding of May 2014, new opportunities for cooperation and planning between education and heritage have been offered to education, giving this encounter the character and history required from time to time. In fact, it is necessary to recognise that the school has played a fundamental role in defining a new quality of democratic use of cultural heritage and in civil and cultural development, effectively activating forms of observation, identification, recognition, interpretation, and knowledge. and appropriation, as well as the promotion and protection of heritage, especially the local heritage closest to the pupils' experience.

The specialized nature of the good, in fact, contributes decisively to making it a particularly useful “means” at the educational and didactic level, at least in its immediately usable and perceptible aspects, even if when we speak of the good, we think of an “objectivity” that often leads to the misconception that it produces learning in itself or, rather, that it leads to quick and easy acquisition. The danger we face today is the persistent misunderstanding of the function of the good, rather than the character of its structures, configurations, and history. However, this is a risk that cannot be avoided if we want to tackle the problem of education for the good properly. On the other hand, cultural heritage, precisely because of the diversity of its forms, requires solid intellectual, methodological, linguistic, etc. skills, combined with attitudes and behaviors that enable the user to correctly decode the messages it conveys, even if it is equally undeniable that solid skills are also needed by those who build the cultural message “on and around the good”, in order to correctly decode the meanings of which the good is the bearer, in an effort to make this message understandable to everyone. From the point of view of knowledge production, this is the complex field of cultural heritage education, which considers fruitful practices in their plurality, heterogeneity and multi-referentiality, stimulating a particularly rich reflection also on other aspects that concern reality, education, the present, the past and the future, in the more general sense of human history. In today's world, which faces the challenge of uniting peoples for peaceful coexistence, world cultural heritage, which collects the traces of extraordinary but also tragic events in human history, can serve as a unifying force for humanity Timmermans et al. (2015) and to help them overcome those forms of "existential displacement" that occur after major disasters or pandemics (2022) and that affect people's lives, their livelihoods and the socio-cultural fabric of society. Enabling future citizens to participate in democratic debate and to make informed choices about social challenges therefore serves not only to build their knowledge, but also to make them more capable of interpreting contemporary problems and emerging conflicts, both near and far, by placing them in an interpretive context that is at once human, social, environmental, historical, and cultural.

 In the face of this plurality of culture, which is constantly diversifying and varying its forms, just as it is increasingly differentiating the ways in which it is used, speaking of education for the “good” becomes essential to understand the multiplicity of transformations taking place in this culture today. In fact, when we study heritage education, we notice that, in general, the “methodological” legitimacy is often affirmed in a practical sense, i.e. not linked to a substantiality of pedagogical research, but to that of “doing”, which is often not supported by an effective empirical verification of what is promoted and done. This type of explanation implies a radical reform of the formative culture of the good, in a field where the latter can be said to be an instrument capable of producing real “skills in the user”. This is especially true at a time when the depth of educational interventions, both inside and outside the school, has increased greatly, in a progressive process of empowerment of the local community, which is called to act with a view to “educational continuity and contiguity”, but still in the total absence of its own theoretical paradigms, where the different knowledge and the different scientific disciplines intersect, offering spaces of intersection for concrete training opportunities. What emerges is a completely paradoxical situation in which we want more education in the good and, at the same time, less of it, that is, on the one hand we want the good to make us learn and, on the other, we want it not to do so much. The ideal often pursued is that of a good that educates without instructing, which is a tolerated inconsistency that goes unnoticed.

 

2. EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH AND CULTURAL FRUITION

But in what sense does the good educate, and can it be used effectively in formation? It depends on how it is “practiced” and used, and on the idea of education that guides its realization. If pedagogy has long pointed out that the path of knowledge passes through the recognition of the centrality of research, analysis and enjoyment for the problem encountered and the identification of solutions for its explanation, it will be the task of education to the good to make the experience of fruition enjoyable from an emotional and cultural point of view, providing the interpretive keys to make it meaningful from the point of view of learning and creating the disposition to repeat it. In this case, research is a key element in the approach to new situations, problems, objects and fields of work, especially when it is proposed to address them with a vision that is not only applicable or of the transfer of knowledge and models, but by setting up experimental interventions with a view to exploration and analysis, to the construction of innovative representations of the problems for their better management or the solution of the phenomena studied Nuzzaci (2012c). Whoever learns to solve problems, to identify their limits and to remedy them, participates in culture, because this is his creation and is communicated and supported by precise cultural codes Bruner (1988). Very often, when we speak of education for the good, we refer in a general way to the activity carried out, forgetting that, to achieve this objective, it is necessary to define appropriately “rationalized” proposals that know how to interpret it correctly. From an operational point of view, this objective must lead those working in the sector to consider educational initiatives and interventions as a means of promoting the acquisition of specific skills, capable of being grafted onto a complex training that makes available the use of precise cognitive and affective tools and is the basis of the ability to correctly enjoy cultural heritage. It is therefore interesting to consider how to integrate the use of the good within a continuum of knowledge, repertoires, and meanings, based on the (pre)disposition of positive access conditions for the construction of meaningful experiences and learning (affective, cognitive, and motor). For this reason, it's essential that the educational activity is entrusted to personnel with adequate pedagogical skills Nuzzaci (2008), in order to guarantee everyone's right to fulfilment, an objective shared by the school and other cultural institutions, which must be based on interventions shared both by those working within the training and those working within the cultural institutions, in a mix of skills that tend to reinforce each other. Thus, if it is clear that “cultural proposals” should be considered as the real meaning of heritage education, it is equally clear that they must be formulated based on the characteristics of the type (“typicality”) of heritage to which they refer, the objectives identified, the specificity of the spaces and contexts concerned, etc. These proposals must include events and activities that can reach the types of recipients to whom they are addressed, and of activating appropriate interventions and strategies by preparing “opportunities” and “situations” that are truly functional for learning. It is therefore essential that the events, actions, and activities are the result of intensive research work aimed at methodological consolidation and providing for a substantial integration and interrelationship between different disciplines and fields, with the aim of bringing together expert skills working together on the idea of the good as a place and space for the training of skills, especially transversal skills. However, beyond the proclamations, the creative dimension of heritage education is not at all common, either in the practices of implementation and daily educational practice, or even in the practices of pedagogical research. This problem is undoubtedly due to the lack of resources, but it is also undoubtedly due to a misconception of heritage and its social function. It is therefore clear that such an articulated process of cultural development requires a rethinking both of the very concept of heritage education (which has never been specified in its fundamental aspects and characteristics and has never been considered as a moment of verification of one's own actions) and of the re-qualification of those working in local cultural institutions (who have almost never taken the trouble to study the effectiveness of the cultural proposals developed in terms of learning, the impact on the learning of the target group and what lies in the specificity of their proposal compared to other forms of education). From what has been said so far, we could conclude that the constant flow of information that would be necessary in the management of Education for the Good remains very fragile, and that it derives from the need to keep the entire management of the cultural proposal in a state of constant control. There is an urgent need to reflect on the role that evaluation can play in the process of education for the good, as a tool capable of making operators take the most appropriate decisions regarding the process from time to time, and possibly assessing its validity; this is equivalent to considering the educational choices modifiable and shifting the greater weight of adaptation to the educational action, as well as taking note of the differences that exist between the different users and acquiring useful elements for the subsequent programming of the territorial cultural offer. Over the years, it has become increasingly clear that there is a close link between the possibility of introducing changes that affect the quality of the cultural proposal and the availability of analytical information on its characteristics. The flow of information is therefore an indispensable condition for the management of educational action, at whatever level it is carried out, without which it is unlikely that effective decisions can be taken, for example to redirect the proposal along innovative lines. The most important consequence of this approach is that evaluation no longer overlaps with “already existing conditions” but becomes a principle for regulating activities and for making informed choices.  It is therefore necessary to develop educational proposals based on solid research, moving away from an idea of the culture of the good centered on intuition and the subjectivity of choices, and promoting a culture oriented towards the analysis and objectification of problems, the explication of hypotheses, etc. This will make it possible to overcome any suspicion of the attempt to introduce elements of rationalization in the organization of the work of educating the cultural heritage and to reject the recurrent objection that, in enjoying the good, one does not become a “school” and that, therefore, one speaks of education but does not do education, confusing the level of learning with the plan of education.

Research is here not only a necessary operational moment, but it becomes a way of conceiving education for the good, centred on the learner who learns, on his previous experiences and knowledge, on his possibilities to deepen, extend, reorganise, build his own knowledge. But the problem becomes even more complicated when we consider that multiple cultural forms represent many ways of looking at the world and how it can be presented, used, and understood by different audiences. Indeed, commodities reflect not only a particular ontology (a view of the nature of the physical world we inhabit) but also a particular epistemology (a view of how knowledge is acquired), and this implicitly determines the way in which individuals learn. More reason, therefore, that the improvement of the quality of education must be based on the study of the relationships, interactions, flows, functional regulation, and dynamics of the articulation of the components that act in the educational process that concerns goods.

This means that those who mediate and use the good for educational purposes must be able to work together to cope with the “hyper-complexity” that dominates the cultural and territorial universe, in order not to run the risk of producing, in the first case, theoretical schemes that are ineffective in practice, or, in the second case, practices that are devoid of certainties. On the other hand, if it is true that those who are concerned with “education for goods” must strive to put into practice increasingly effective forms of planning, it is equally true that those who are primarily concerned with “research on education for goods” cannot neglect the relationships that exist between disciplines, sources, territories, and specific learning contexts. It is precisely in culture, understood as the context of the production and interpretation of meaning, that spaces open that are large enough to contain a great variety of cultural, social, and artistic forms, including both material and immaterial goods. It is then evident that culture is not a genre, but that all genres are potentially cultural” Parancandolo (1997), 162.

This obliges us to clarify the relationship that exists between the identities of the good (typologies) and the education of goods, as well as between education and didactics, between general didactics and the didactics of the discipline and of “knowing how to communicate, mediate and teach”. In this sense, it is also necessary to understand the real impact of the user experience on the individual who carries out a specific programme or educational path, in terms of actions that favour the acquisition of knowledge, the understanding of concepts and any positive attitude towards the good or territory. Educational research must address some of these important issues if it is to pursue precise educational objectives and participate more intensively than in the past in the education of the community, also thanks to the partnership with schools and local institutions. If, on the one hand, the improvement of the pedagogical quality of the asset is to be achieved through the recognition of “strong skills”, on the other hand, it is necessary to provide teachers, sector operators, mediators, etc. with the means that will enable them to commit themselves in this direction, avoiding that their “undeclared work” is necessarily dispersed in occasional activities and without a systemic approach. These needs are now widely shared by educators, trainers, operators in the sector, researchers, teachers, and administrators. But very little is being done to respond to them in a precise and concrete way.

Figure 1

Figure 1 Fruition and Behavior

 

3. BUILD A POSITIVE ATTITUDE TO FRUITION TO LEARN HOW TO “USE” THE GOOD TO RE-ESTABLISH IDENTITY AND ACTIVELY EXERCISE CITIZENSHIP

Cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, as an open concept, refers to culture as a dynamic process and reflects life in all its aspects. It affirms in tangible and intangible ways that every person, group, or social practice is a cultural product. Environmental and landscape heritage, as a set of natural beauties and artistic-historical-cultural heritage in its complexity, recognises the preservation of historical and artistic heritage to safeguard civilisation, customs, and traditions, in essence the historical memory of a community, and to protect the environment built by man over time. Here, landscape is also recognised as having a psychological function Lingiardi (2017), in addition to its cultural, ecological, environmental, and social functions, emphasized in the European Landscape Convention as "contributing to human well-being and satisfaction and to the consolidation of European cultural, ecological, environmental and social identity". In this sense, the European Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society of 27 October 2005, or the Faro Convention, opens a concept of heritage as a useful source both for human development, fulfilling specific educational functions and implying the enhancement of cultural diversity and the promotion of intercultural dialogue, and as a model of economic development based on the principles of sustainable use of resources.

In this sense, it is also necessary to read the ample space devoted to heritage education in Italy, which, with great effort, has initiated interdisciplinary scientific and methodological studies so that every citizen can freely participate in the cultural life of the community, enjoy the goods, and participate in scientific cultural progress and its benefits. This is also thanks to the fact that Italy has a recognised cultural influence in the world, linked both to the attraction of its heritage and to the ability to develop new forms of knowledge and skills, starting from the exchange of human values, unique and exceptional testimonies of cultural traditions, extraordinary examples of settlements and types of buildings of extreme value, architectural and technological ensembles and new landscapes representing different phases of history  UNESCO (2011), UNESCO (2023), UNESCO (1972).

One's own previous experience and that of other human beings, in the form of culture, comes into play in almost every event of existence. Each specific culture provides a kind of blueprint for all life's activities Kluckohn (1960). There is a relationship between social and cultural practices and the construction of identities Levi-Strauss (1980), which have many relationships with history, heritage, culture, language, and consciousness, as well as a complex of other characteristics. In this sense, personal identity and society are complementary elements in the construction of reality Mead (1966). Identity does not belong exclusively to the individual, but is understood as a structure of social order, the construction of which is the result of a self-regulating process that relates representations of self to reality.

Consequently, the ongoing practices of human beings in the context of groups, through which the participants construct with their lives the character and identity of a particular community and the specific pattern of behaviour that distinguishes it from all others, lead to an understanding of culture essentially as a construct describing the totality of beliefs, behaviours, knowledge, sanctions, values and goals that characterise people's way of life: what they have, do and think Herskovitz (1948), p. 625. However, the “possession” of culture presupposes that the possessor is aware of his “knowledge” and that, to really “master” it, he not only has an idea of it, but also lives it and is consciously “imbued” with it.

It is obvious that, in this perspective, the current trend is above all to study one of the central dimensions of heritage education, namely that of active citizenship. Indeed, cultural, and environmental heritage education is a tool for lifelong learning and a space for exercising civil, cultural, and social rights, the “subtle” ones Bobbio (2007). Attitudes towards the good are generally accompanied by strong emotional tones of attraction or repulsion; negative and persistent attitudes are almost always linked to unfavourable experiences, even at a young age. And this aspect is more interesting when we consider that attitudes towards the good, school, and non-school experience, the process of acquisition are all variables that influence each other. It is a widespread belief that the good is experienced to a very different extent by different users, mainly because of the differences in prerequisites and abilities between subjects. The presence or absence of certain prerequisites for reading or decoding the good facilitates or hinders its understanding, especially within an increasing complexity that sees the cultural heritage of a community in constant movement and change. Precisely from the observation that there is a diachronic and synchronic fluctuation of the good, it is essential to equip oneself with a solid cultural substratum capable of coping with the changes that occur within cultural systems, where moments of formation constitute an essential condition for attending to the growing participation and awareness of new scenarios in the territorial contexts in which one finds oneself living and working. The goods recall the concrete possibility of rethinking the spaces of education, creating and re-creating contexts of sharing for a new sense of citizenship. In thinking about the role played by forms of learning that take place outside the school, we must reflect on the multiplication of places and opportunities for an education that today seems to be increasingly articulated and extensive. This diversity calls for a high degree of differentiation in pedagogical methods, both in terms of pathways and in terms of the tools and techniques used, as well as in terms of challenging forms of cultural literacy that are not always, or still too little, pursued by schools. However, it must be remembered that it is precisely from the richness of the contributions of recent years that new bodies have emerged that seek to answer questions related to the debate on important concepts, on what “user skills” would be necessary as opposed to “sector skills”, and on what kind of “educational communication” is more appropriate to ensure that heritage becomes a space and a cognitive environment Nuzzaci (2011). Identifying strategies for approaching the process of learning and training for the good therefore means bringing into play the relationships between the construction of knowledge and the construction of attitudes towards fruition, which are based on previous experiences and exquisite individual skills, including soft skills. Working on the reading of cultural objects (natural, artistic, etc.) and on all the obstacles that prevent their correct use (symbolic, cultural, interpretative, contextual, etc.) means building an “intentionality of seeing” that prepares and integrates understanding. The good thus becomes a narrative plot, the telling of a story that users can read, interpret, and discover in new “writings” (new scripts), as well as “reciting” them. This allows us to emphasise the importance that, if properly mediated, the pleasure associated with the experience of fruition, the familiarisation with the cultural, social, and territorial space and possible learning reinvestments can assume, with a view to creating a favourable availability for the enjoyment of cultural heritage and transforming the child, the young person, the adult into a “consumer and frequent user” of goods. These considerations seem necessary to work on a different representation of heritage and on its concrete possibility to contribute to the “formation” of individuals, that is, to positively influence their cultural elaborations. It is therefore necessary to translate into concrete objectives the ambitious goal of “building” positive attitudes, and thus making the freedom to enjoy the good effective.  It is well known that attitudes are linked to aspects of the individual's personality, both because they depend on previous experience and because they concern beliefs, emotions, values, etc., and are characterised by a “tendency to act”. The positive attitude towards achievement is linked to the value that the individual assigns to it, that is, the value that it occupies in the hierarchy of values of a person. If the value attributed to use is high, it is likely that the frequency of use of the asset will also be high. However, for this attitude to be stable, it must be based on pedagogical skills capable of creating, modifying, and maintaining it, thus ensuring the correct use of the asset by the user, as well as his habit of visiting it. Specifically, it involves:

·        create an affective disposition conducive to the encounter with the cultural heritage;

·        make the encounter with the cultural asset positive so that the pupils develop pleasant perceptions of it and of themselves in relation to the asset;

·        show that knowing the good is useful and that great cognitive advantages can be derived from such experience;

·        meet individual needs;

·        tailoring education and training to the good of the students;

·        make the cognitive impact of the good profitable;

·        consolidate and sediment experiences.

 

In fact, it is well known that a positive attitude becomes more positive and a negative attitude more negative when it is linked to other attitudes and other characteristics of the individual, for the same reason that a good result obtained in one area can influence the positive attitude and vice versa, with repercussions on subsequent experiences. It is therefore intuitive to conclude that attitudes are shaped by the information to which the individual is exposed, and that the individual tends to use it in ways that reinforce pre-existing behaviours and attitudes. It follows that educational interventions can bring about stable changes in people who already have their own attitudes or in those who do not have them at all. Referring all this back to the various educational institutions involved (schools, playgrounds, libraries, museums, etc.), we can say that they are able to reinforce previously assumed attitudes of fruition or to create new ones, if they use the asset in a way that is consciously functional for the educational experience.

These are all elements that can help to identify innovative methods and tools to elaborate, internalize and build and implement new cultural objectives in formation. In its spatio-temporal continuity, the Italian urban heritage can become a dimension of learning, especially when it is interpreted as a space of cultural intersection and trait d'union between testimonies and cultures from all over the world. All this starts from a tradition of educational research that thinks of heritage in properly interdisciplinary and multidimensional terms that the different disciplines use to interact with each other in a highly productive cultural exchange. Usually, when referring to learning contexts, most of the spaces and environments of the territory, including urban ones, are not considered from the point of view of their critical interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and multicultural potential, because environmental education and the territory are always thought above all in relation to the depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation Gough & Gough (2010), the deep general concern about the deterioration and devastation of places and the poor relationship between human beings and their environment, biophysical, social and cultural. Although common visions are linked to the importance of caring for and relating to the environment and territory, too often there is a certain disregard for the needs, cultures, values, and symbolic repertoires of the different communities.

Research Hazler (2012), Okuyucu & Somuncu (2012), Karadeniz et al. (2018) showed how experience with it (whether negative or positive) with urban heritage can influence perceptions, representations, and learning, shaping individuals' interpretation of reality. By drawing on the relationships between perception/learning/emotion of individuals, education could succeed in developing analytical frameworks capable of incorporating additional elements aimed at enhancing the cognitive and interpretative possibilities of reality by children, adolescents, and adults. This is because cultural and environmental heritages can redesign the representations of meanings and symbols, taking on the role of real cultural supports, capable of providing users with denotative and connotative elements essential for recognizing and managing symbolic systems and strengthening alphabetic processes. This is because the nature of urban and environmental heritage is closely related to identity and symbolic processes, fueling complex semiotic functions.

 

4. CONCLUSION

The good can make a valid contribution to education if it makes the educational act, rather than the educational discourse, the object of analysis, in order to identify, define and translate pedagogical principles into activities. The way in which the culture of the good and the learning of knowledge in context are defined in Italy is essential to achieve a better specification of the theoretical framework and the possibilities offered by the development of a process of learning the good, conceived as a space “open to the whole community”. This calls into question pedagogical research, which, in turn, opens every space for “freedom of understanding”, pursuing the path of knowledge of which heritage education is a part. In this sense, the encounter between pedagogy, research and education on cultural and environmental heritage implies forms of planning aimed at supporting the learning of the school population, at all levels of education, and of all individuals (children, young people and adults), through the co-design and management of precise environments and educational spaces, increasing the quality of fruition and the adequacy of acquisition processes of various kinds (cognitive, social, relational, etc.). From this point of view of interpretation, cultural and environmental heritage can only become accessible to all if the alphabet through which it is expressed is understood, so that it ceases to be a “monument” to be transformed into a real educational need aimed at strengthening the interpretive repertoire of individuals in educational contexts to improve their “cognitive well-being” and their inclusion processes.

 

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

None. 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

None.

 

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