Thinking Together to Reopen Futures. Building Communities of Thought through Philosophical Practices in Vocational Education

Philosophical practices can foster meaningful youth participation in vocational education through the creation of Communities of Thought (Michelini, 2016), recognising students’ voices, experiences and interpretations as legitimate forms of knowledge (Freire, 1968; hooks, 1994). Such practices support the development of narrative identities (Ricoeur, 1983), enabling young people – particularly those often marginalised within formal education systems – to reimagine and actively shape their personal and collective futures. The contribution is grounded in a three-year research–training project (2023–2025) conducted across nine vocational training centres in the Milan area. The study adopts an action research framework integrating the Clinic of Education (Massa, 1992) and Operational Epistemology (Fabbri & Munari, 1984). Mixed and parallel groups of students, teachers and trainers engaged in philosophical practices inspired by Philosophy for Children (Lipman, 1976). These practices included the use of material mediators (e.g., music, images, objects and metaphors), dialogical settings and ongoing pedagogical supervision for teachers, with a focus on reflexivity, non-evaluative dialogue and shared meaning-making. Empirical evidence from the project highlights how such practices can function as spaces that challenge traditional power relations in vocational education. Students actively participate in generating questions, negotiating meanings and connecting personal experiences to broader ethical and social issues. At the same time, teachers’ roles shift from authoritative figures to facilitators and co-participants, contributing to significant transformations in learning environments. The findings also identify key conditions supporting the reproducibility of these practices in other contexts, including sustained reflexive processes (Schön, 1983), the integration of dialogical methodologies and the recognition of experiential knowledge. Overall, the project shows how youth participation can be embedded in everyday educational practices by redesigning learning spaces and fostering democratic and participatory forms of education (Dewey, 1938)