The Department

Director: Prof. Pierluigi Malavasi

The Department of Pedagogy of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore promotes and develops an intense scientific research activity in the field of education and training sciences at various faculties and campuses of the University, in dialogue with humanities and hard sciences and in collaboration with national and international heuristics, institutions, foundations, associations and companies.

Major research areas include: general and social pedagogy; history of education, pedagogy and children's literature;  special pedagogy, didactics and educational technologies; experimental pedagogy; methods and didactics of motor activities, areas that are characterized by scientific and methodological rigor, as well as by the centrality attributed to the person and the community, in a pedagogical-educational dimension.

The Department of Pedagogy promotes the PhD in Personal and Educational Sciences. Scholars belonging to the Department give life to numerous scientific events, with reference to epistemological, design, empirical, evaluative, applicative research and the professionalization, in particular, of pedagogists, teachers, trainers, educators.

Its history has its roots in the Catholic and scientific pedagogy that since the Second World War has affected the cultural life and school policy of the country. Established on 31 May 1983, the Department takes up the legacy of the Pedagogical Seminary founded by Mario Casotti in 1945 in the then Faculty of Education and subsequently transformed into the Institute of Pedagogy. From its establishment to date, the direction of the Department has been entrusted to:

• Mario Casotti (until 1966)
• Aldo Agazzi (1966-1978)
• Luciano Pazzaglia (1979-1989), who led the transformation from an Institute to a Department in 1983
• Don Norberto Galli (1989-1995)
• Luigi Pati (1995-2000):
• Cesare Scurati (2000-2008)
• Giuseppe Vico (2008-2010)
• Simonetta Polenghi (2010-2022)
• Pierluigi Malavasi (from 2022)