Starting over from the Southern. Analysis of a new model of territorial education and development

The South of Italy represents an emblematic and very complicated territory of Southern Europe. It is renowned at international level as an example of resistance to innovation and cultural change. Despite the South of Italy possesses an enviable artistic, cultural and natural heritage, from centuries it is afflicted from poverty, unemployment, corruption, illiteracy. The combination of unfavorable living conditions and organized crime forms have compromised the development of the territory, deserving the label of a "southern question" which has now become a historical category. For examples, in Italy the school dropout is decreasing from 20.8% in 2006 to 13.8% in 2016 (Minister of Education, 2017) but the regional detail shows an important gap: all the southern regions are above the national average of school dropouts. The same problem also applies to the adult functional illiterates. The regions of Southern Italy have much higher percentages of functional illiteracy than the Central and North-Eastern regions (Isfol, 2016). The authors propose a reflection on the educational policies of Southern Europe through the study of an emblematic experience born with the explicit objective of promoting development strategies conceived for the Southern Italy. The case study is the Foundation CON IL SUD. It was founded with the aim of promoting social infrastructure as a precondition for an autonomous process of development in the South. This research action uses a case study considered emblematic for different aspects. Foundation CON IL SUD represents a highly innovative initiative in the panorama of public and private activities dedicated to the Southern Italy. It was born from the alliance between the private sector of banking foundations and the world of the Third sector. It supports initiatives, educational projects and forms of collaboration among subjects involved in enhancing social and cultural local resources. The innovation is above all the reversal of the educational perspective that using the South as a model of training experimentation for the research-action methodology. Moreover, the Third sector and civil society are therefore the protagonists of over one thousand intervention planned by the Foundation during 11 years. The survey was conducted through the listening of privileged witnesses interviewed both among the promoters of the Foundation and among the managers of some "exemplary projects", considered strategic for quality, representativeness of partnerships, management of resources and impact on the territory. The original material collected and analyzed is made available to the Foundation. It concerns: project documents, training products, communication materials and evaluation reports. The case study is an opportunity to understand the thematic areas of greatest investment and, conversely, those areas that are more lacking in training. The aim is to bring out the critical issues and the potentials of policies and training methods from an inverted point of view. In fact, to the traditional conception the South is used as a pejorative comparison point; this study aims to investigate the possibility of looking at the South as a protagonist and promoter of an educational model that can be exported to other areas of the country.