A brief history of the Research network
The AIS’ research network on “Sociology of Education” (AIS-EDU) brings the legacy of a long tradition of studies and research on educational processes and institutions developed in Italy since the 1950s.
The researches carried out by the Sociologists of Education aim to apply the interpretive tools of sociology and social sciences to reflect on the transformations of formal, informal and non-formal educational processes, on socialization processes as well as on educational policies.
AIS-EDU promotes national and international research networks, with the involvement of academics and researchers, as well as of professionals and practitioners concerned with educational processes. Its main objectives are the following: developing theoretical and methodological tools; analysing in field the structural and subjective phenomena and processes; promoting debates, planning and organizing training activities addressed to both school staff and education professionals.

Main theoretical and research areas

• Agencies and processes of socialisation: school, family, non-formal and informal agencies; choice processes; educational polycentrism;
• Actors and policies of education: actors and educational policies, in historical, longitudinal and comparative perspectives;
• Adults and continuing education: no schooling and lifelong learning, both from specialized knowledge systems and from users’ point of view; e processi di lifelong learning, sia dal punto di vista degli utenti, sia da quello dei sistemi specializzati del sapere;
• Social capital and education: networks of support and trust, through which social capital influences education and education represents a social capital;
• Body, learning and technology: transformations in education and learning; new media, social media and learning environments;
• Migration and education: trajectories of second generations migrants and unaccompanied minors, inter-culture and cultural mediation;
• Higher education: academic and non-academic post-secondary education; functioning of universities; behaviours and attitudes of professors and officials; students and graduates’ experiences.