Socio-anthropological approaches to educational issues: grounds, methods and epistemological reflections [Editorial] ; Approcci socio-antropologici alle questioni educative: terreni, metodi e riflessioni epistemologiche [Editoriale]

International audience ; Today, the socio-anthropology of education and comparative education constitute an emerging disciplinary field that allows us to understand and interpret more objectively not only local forms of kinship, caring and socialisation but also, and above all, the relationship that certain human groups have with knowledge and the different possible conceptions associated with the notion of education. The research carried out in recent years has enabled us to learn about the organisational models that govern local family and community structures, to understand the mechanisms that give them a certain pedagogical validity and, finally, to understand that each human group uses cultural transmission strategies shaped by the (natural and socio-cultural) context. This scientific production has highlighted the different roles played by parents, families, teachers and communities, contributing to the understanding of this typically human experience that is education. The socio-anthropological approach to educational issues, unlike the cognitive one, has been primarily concerned with comparisons and comparisons, in order to systematically describe and analyse the strategies through which, in the different cultures and subcultures that make up our global village, networks, groups and social institutions pursue the universal goal of educating the members of their communities. The methods at our disposal - ethnography, systematic observation or enquiry, for example - facilitate 'contamination' between disciplines, allow us to access both formal educational contexts (teaching and the everyday life of the school community) and informal ones (the transmission of ethical norms, socialisation, language learning, games, intergenerational relations and even household chores) and, above all, allow us to overcome the sterile opposition between qualitative and quantitative methods.In a world that has become multidimensional, in which institutional systems and forms of social organisation at local, national, and ...