Sustainable inclusion of youths from prison contexts through cultural heritage: The pedagogical action of the Puteoli Sacra Project.

Abstract In Italy, minors and young adults (aged 14-25) currently under the care of the Juvenile Justice Services number around 14,000 (Cf. DGMC, 2024). We are clearly facing an educational emergency, which deeply challenges the pedagogical action and its transformative possibilities. Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda, "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" (UN, 2015), emphasizes the essential contribution of sustainable development to the social inclusion of marginalized and excluded adults and youth, through the full realization of individual life projects and democratic participation. In this sense, cultural heritage and heritage education represent a privileged ground to pursue the objectives of "sustainability." The contribution discusses the pedagogical action carried out within the "Puteoli Sacra" project, aimed at boys and girls from the Juvenile Penitentiary Institute of Nisida and the Female Prison of Pozzuoli, respectively. The Puteoli Sacra Project, through the valorization of the cultural and historical heritage of the “Rione Terra”, aims to promote a dual rebirth: on one hand, the enhancement of places and territory, and on the other, the personal and professional transformative potential of the participants. For years, museums, considered as the primary depositories and responsible for heritage education, have been actively engaged in addressing the social issues of individual and community well-being and health (Sandell & Nightingale, 2012; Janes & Sandell, 2019). Specifically, the imaginative capacity is identified as fundamental for transformative and quality education, benefiting individuals, communities, and the environment, an education that allows looking to the future and initiating planetary change, in other words, a "sustainable" education (UNESCO, 2023) From a pedagogical point of view, the project promotes the idea of education as a "practice of freedom" (Freire, 1979; Don Milani 1969), overcoming the concept of "re-education" associated with education in penal contexts, understood as educating anew and more rigorously (Iori, 2015), educating "from scratch" and "in place" of those families who have not been capable of doing so. Re-educating, like rehabilitating, implies that a consistently performed exercise can lead subjects to "function well", to overcome their social "disability".(Farne, 2020) However, such a perspective does not seem to fully account for the complexity of the change these boys and girls are called upon: the education of those who have turned to delinquency requires, in the first instance, the individual's willingness to participate actively and consciously in their personal growth, requiring that "search for an authentic life" (Bertolini & Caronia, 2021), which is driven by an emancipatory and self-determined transformative urge. While acknowledging the coexistence of multiple determinants that influence the behavior of these youths, it is essential to place at the center of the educational journey the recognition of their capacity and possibility to be active subjects; this "agentic" capacity (Bandura 1997, Biesta G.J.J., Tedder M. 2007; Emirbayer M., Mische A. 1998; Sibilio & Aiello 2018), founded on self-reflective (Mezirow, 2000; Schon, 1993, Fabbri, 2007) and self-regulatory systems (Bandura, 1997), ensures each individual maintains a margin of freedom (Sabatano, Pagano 2019) in their decision-making processes, allowing them not to be deterministically connected to a family destiny that makes them the exclusive product of the criminal social system and structure within which they live. In this perspective, the "Puteoli Sacra" project serves as a crossroads between social inclusion, sustainability, accessibility, and ecological care, as it invokes in a transformative key (Mezirow & Taylor, 64 2009) the pedagogical categories of beauty, active and democratic participation, and the common good. Specifically, after a training course, the boys and girls are engaged in the archaeological and museum site of Rione Terra as tour guides, responsible for educational activities for the school communities visiting the site, and in security and heritage conservation roles. In this sense, education and training, as primary agents of change towards sustainability (UN, 2015), promote self-understanding and understanding of others, as well as awareness of connections with the social and natural environment; “stimulating the values, behaviors, and lifestyles required for a sustainable future” (Falchetti, 2020, p. 139; Tilbury & Wortman, 2004); they call for a commitment to justice, responsibility, and dialogue. Therefore, the "Puteoli Sacra" project can be seen as a "best practice" whose methodological, project-based, and value elements can be subject to replication in similar contexts, highlighting how, from an inclusive perspective, cultural heritage can contribute to strengthening the ability of at-risk youths to realize an autonomous life project, increasing their capacity to turn their aspirations into reality.