Dimensions of educational poverty and emergencies What are the protective factors for wellbeing?

Over the last few years, an idea of risk is emerging that correlates emergencies and their management to a more specific idea of “educational risk” (Isidori, Vaccarelli, 2013), which can be translated into the increase of chances of educational poverty. The consequences of a catastrophe often affect a multitude of aspects that influence and modify the so-called “educational functions” of territories and cities, impacting on issues that are strongly related to equality, or rather equity, in the access of citizens to quality educational experiences (Dewey, 2014). The contribution intends to build a line of reasoning around the interpretation of researches and studies carried out straight after the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, linking them to the data emerged from a research carried out in the city between 2018 and 2020, near the tenth anniversary of the event. The aim is to make a first attempt to systematize those dimensions that contribute to the educational poverty and that are related to emergency situations, looking at them also in the perspective of the long-term consequences. The attempt is to reflect on which aspects have to be taken into particular consideration and on what are, or could be, the protective factors for the well-being of children involved in emergencies. The debate focuses on resilience as an educational horizon (Cyrulnik, 2005; Vaccarelli, 2016) and on protective or adverse individual and social factors, in order to outline possible ways to build responses, in the form of adequate and effective social, cultural and educational policies and interventions.