Evaluation of the project Prato Comunità Educante that promotes the education growth of high school students in Prato

Title Prato Comunità Educante

Location Prato, Italy

Duration 3 anni

Project Leader Cooperativa Pane E Rose e Associazione Cieli Aperti.

 Partners Istituto Comprensivo Malaparte,  Comune di Prato/Museo Pretorio, Istituto Comprensivo Marco Polo, Fondazione per le arti contemporanee in Toscana, ISSS Paolo Dagomari, Fondazione Teatro Metastasio, ISISS Cicognini – Rodari, Camerata Strumentale Città di Prato, ISSS Carlo Livi – Brunelleschi, Fondazione Parsec – Parco delle Scienze e della Cultura, ITS Tullio Buzzi, Fondazione Museo del Tessuto, Istituto Datini CGFS (Centro Giovanile di Formazione Sportiva), Istituto Comprensivo Gandhi Alambicchi cooperativa sociale, Istituto Comprensivo Pacetti, Associazione Polis, Istituto Comprensivo Don Milani, Scuola d’Arte Leonardo Aps, Ipsia Marconi A.D.A. Prato onlus, ISIS Gramsci-Keynes Associazione Insieme per la Famiglia, Liceo Scientifico Copernico Ufficio Scolastico Provinciale.

Funding Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Prato e Intesa San Paolo per il Sociale

 

Context

The project Prato Comunità Educante connects a network composed of 15 organisations of the Third Sector, 13 high schools of the area surrounding Prato, the PIN Foundation – through ARCO – and the local administration with the aim of promoting better educational and cultural growth among students.

The project stems from the need to strengthen the collaboration between the multiple organisations and institutions in the Prato area in order to teach and encourage high school students to carefully observe the world around them, formulate new hypotheses, plan possible futures, experiment and analyse results in a systematic manner, question information, analyse different perspectives and objectively evaluate sources of knowledge by overcoming the barriers between the various disciplines and encouraging interaction between the arts, theatre, music, science and sports activities.

By interconnecting needs and responses within the educational community, the project aims also at improving digital skills to contrast misinformation and promote fact-checking as an essential educational tool.

The project aims, therefore, to develop a mentality oriented towards discovery, curiosity and promote a critical approach to knowledge in order to better face the challenges of the contemporary world, including the spread of fake news.

 

General Objective

The M&E and Impact Evaluation Unit was involved to carry out the evaluation of the 3 years of the project.

 

Our contribution

To analyse the progress of the project, its activities and results, the M&E and Impact Evaluation Unit adopted a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology. The research team also carried out several field visits to meet beneficiaries, stakeholders, and operators and to conduct participatory activities, including focus groups discussions and interviews.

In order to assess the degree of achievement in the creation of the solid network of the Prato Comunità Educante and the evolution of the relations between the actors involved by the project, ARCO also applied a social network analysis.

The Social network analysis studies, measures and graphically represents social relations both between subjects and between groups of subjects, in this case Third Sector organisations, cultural and musical institutions and educational institutions.

 

TO know more on the analysis, the results or to take a look at the evaluation report, drop us a line at info@arcolab.org

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