“Becoming‐with the world”: embodied perspective‐shifting practices and the development of educators' transformative agency

Offering educational settings of “becoming” entails confrontation with diversity. Considering the case study of the “Cultivating knowledge and care” course, this paper aims at understanding how the educational experiences of future educators are shaped by a semester-­ long course consisting of care and knowledge practices involving embodied perspective shifting activities (e.g., artefacts creation). The course was attended by first year students in Educational Sciences and deaf and neurodivergent young adults. A convergent mixed methods design is implemented: the quantitative component is constituted by the Soft Skills self-evaluation questionnaire (3SQ), the Connectedness to nature one (CNS), and the multidimensional self-­ esteem one (TMA). Subsequently, two focus-­ group discussions were conducted in connection with creative tasks: the first was linked to a photo-elicitation activity, and the second to a symbolic artefact task (paper folding). Integrated findings indicate that the laboratory was associated with stronger gains in self-­ perceived curiosity, trust, resilience, and emotional regulation, alongside qualitative narratives of perspective-­ shifting, relational attunement, and agency-­ as-­ achievement, thus supporting an integrative interpreta- tion of transformative agency and diversity awareness.