Relational quality, sense of belonging, care, and shared responsibility in university education
Francesco Pizzolorusso
The university experience is, in fact, a situated experience, mediated by interactions, communicative practices, and symbolic devices that shape how students inhabit academic space and construct their professional identity. From this standpoint, the academic classroom constitutes a context of implicit education, in which students learn forms of participation in knowledge and develop relational, civic, and professional competences (Nussbaum, 2010; Biesta, 2013), mediated by elements such as the organization of space, modes of interaction, and the management of participation. It therefore appears necessary to examine the relational and institutional conditions that make the university experience possible (Lizzio, Wilson & Simons, 2002), beyond an interpretation focused solely on learning outcomes. Within this framework, classroom climate represents a useful interpretive category for understanding the symbolic and relational quality of higher education.
Keywords
University experience, higher education, relational dimension, classroom climate.
