La supervisione pedagogica. Quadri concettuali, pratiche e criticità

Pedagogical supervision is a meta-reflective tool thanks to which professional educators can experience the generative potential of reflection, dialogue with colleagues and comparison between knowledge acquired on the field, theories founding their praxis and intervention strategies developed in relation to different subjects, contexts and institutional partners. It is a vocational tool where thought and learning about educators’ professional identity and role, analyzed by focusing on premises, practices and praxis, looking for coherence between planning actions and intervention methodologies. It is a fundamental tool in broadening educators’ professional culture, even though it is hardly recognized as essential and indispensable. The present study starts from the belief that educators’ professionalism has to be thought and must make use of tools able to activate and oversee reflective and dialogical processes of (self-)evaluation and practical transformation, leading to the development of theories. Pedagogically centered reflection shared within work teams, services and organizations enables educators to review their praxis in terms of intentional aims and educational projects; but, above all, it makes them able to conceptualize knowledge acquired on the field and strengthen their own professional identity. The scanty production of thought around pedagogical supervision is an indication of its complexity, as well as the pedagogue’s difficulty in recognizing and being recognized as "the" depositary of knowledge about education as a profession. This in turn leads to the consequent risk of delegating the task of expanding the interpretative framework in which educational events are included to professionals from different disciplines, thus losing sight of the specific pedagogical point of view and aims. This study takes part in an open pedagogical debate, useful for increasing knowledge, but especially focusing on the significance and recognition of pedagogical supervision as a practice for supporting and enhancing educational professionalism, since it is an essential tool for the development of educators’ professional culture. Supervision, first of all, has been observed as an object to clarify both on the level of praxis and meanings, making a methodological mixture between phenomenological approach and grounded theory. The research was carried out, therefore, keeping the plan of theorization and the plan of praxis in constant and recursive dialogue: literature analysis and comparison with subjects making use of supervision as a professional tool were carried out simultaneously, through frequent references and stimuli to further reflection and investigation. Literature has provided information concerning the functions and the possible structures by which the supervision process can be accomplished; in order to extract from practices the multiplicity of contents, methodologies and reflections circulating within socio-educational services, a series of interviews were carried out with people variously involved in the supervision process: educators, representatives of organizations, professional supervisors. Therefore, supervision was enriched with elements of concreteness taken from narrations of current experiences, that have further defined it as a dynamic process, modulated according to needs and functions defined by work teams, starting from the formulation of questions on meaning and from the negotiation of objectives and contents. Supervision is not focused on practical problems, although it produces significant effects on the praxis through the implementation of reflective processes that increase educators’ levels of awareness and professionalism. It is a support tool in the process of constructing a professional identity and role, transversal to different areas and contexts of intervention. The professional figure of supervisor appears crucial, not only because his/her conceptual frameworks direct the focus of attention on education processes, but also because his/her methods of constructing the setting and management of working groups determine the course and the effectiveness of the supervision process. He/she has to show complete mastery in specific knowledge and transversal skills for whose acquisition, currently, he/she has assumed autonomous responsibility of self-training. However, a second level learning and training course (for which a structure hypothesis has been formulated) as well as a professional lifelong learning process are highly desirable. Within socio-educational services, multiple meta-reflective experiences related to learning, counseling, coordination and research processes are performed; a comparison with supervision has been made, offering some thoughtful insights about potentially confusing overlapping areas. Finally, in order to complete the attempt of analysis and recomposition of complexity, supervision has been replaced within the composite picture of places of reflection on educators’ professionalism, alongside team meetings, communities of practice and meaningful informality of daily comparison with colleagues and clients, as well as the need for self-reflective processes. These are thoughtful places in which educators can gain multiple skills and knowledge, broadening their professional culture.