[Resilience, social relations, and pedagogic intervention five years after the earthquake occurred in L'Aquila (Central Italy) in 2009: an action-research in the primary schools].

OBJECTIVES

the action-research "Outdoor training and citizenship between children from L'Aquila", carried out from 2014 to 2015 in some schools situated in the municipality of L'Aquila, aimed to answer to the needs emerged in reference to the social and psychological problems among children during the period after the L'Aquila earthquake occurred in 2009. In particular, the article provides documentary evidence about the results regarding the parts related to the study of resilience (cognitive objective) and of social relations (objective tied to the educational intervention), five years after the earthquake.

DESIGN

the pedagogical research team, in close cooperation with the Cartography Laboratory of the University of L'Aquila and with the Grupo de Innovación Educativa Areté de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, has worked according to the research-action methodology, collecting secondary data and useful data to check the effectiveness of the educational actions put in place in order to promote resilient behaviours and to activate positive group dynamics.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

the study has been developed in 4 primary schools of the L'Aquila and has involved 83 children from 8 to 12 years. A control group made by 55 subjects, homogeneous for sex and age, has been identified in the primary schools of Borgorose, a little town near Rieti (Central Italy).

RESULTS

data about the abilities of resilience and about the response to the stress have been collected in the first phase of the study with the purpose to outline the initial situation and develop an appropriate educational intervention. The comparison with the control group made by 55 subjects who were not from L'Aquila allowed to check that, 5 years after the disaster, the context of life produces a meaningful discrepancy in terms of responses to the stress and to the ability of resilience, and this fact is definitely negative for children from L'Aquila. On the other hand, data related to social relations allowed to verify how the educational intervention, according to the outdoor techniques, can activate social relation dynamics and foster open attitudes towards individual or group problem-solving technique in a post-disaster context.

CONCLUSIONS

in post-disaster contexts, the pedagogical work of educational and cultural reconstruction is necessary to face the development of the resilience abilities in the youngest generations and to reactivate useful social relation dynamics in order to build active citizenship attitudes and behaviours.