L’educativa di strada come dispositivo di welfare urbano, tra pratiche educative diffuse e prevenzione del disagio giovanile

This paper presents the results of a research conducted on an innovative street education service launched in a provincial capital in northern Italy. The initiative, which began as a youth centre, has evolved into a widespread educational programme (Plaisier, 2022), with the aim of identifying early signs of distress, preventing deviant behaviour, combating social isolation and supporting young people at risk of dropping out of school in collaboration with schools (Bertolini, 2003). The study, which directly involved educators and managers and indirectly involved policymakers and young beneficiaries, highlights its strengths, weaknesses and opportunities (Tramma, 2017) which become, from a pedagogical perspective, strategic nodes for street education understood as a device for urban welfare and social pedagogy (Antaki, N., Belfield, A., & Moore, T., 2024), capable of transforming public spaces into places of interaction and prevention.