Returning from educational exile : the school of Barbiana and emancipatory nurture groups as projects of hope and possibility

Abstract

Together with fellow travellers, Paul Cooper dedicated substantial time and academic energy to explore the perennial challenge of how schools can re/ engage alienated children by 'reattaching' them to transformative educational sites - schools or other educational spaces that operate differently from the unhospitable scholastic spaces which would have pushed children out ( Cooper, 2008). While focusing on educational terrains, which can domesticate as much as they can emancipate, this chapter builds on the awareness that the highly demanding task of attracting children back to the educational realm - physically, mentally and emotionally - is often complicated by layers of injustices unfolding outside the periphery of the schooling system. It seeks to do so by examining how the School of Barbiana in Italy operated as an emancipatory, nurturing project fostering hope and possibility for its students.