UNESCO Chair - Generative Pedagogy and Educational System to Tackle Inequity

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About the Chair

Pedagogical generativity is a process that activates within the non-place of the mind — referred to as latency or metaphorization — through which the Human, the living being, creates intentional enactive actions that produce the self-realization of a life project or a "prospective end." Through this process, the subject re-emerges as an end in itself, rather than a means. Generativity is a non-linear, cultural, affective-cognitive act of learning, expressed through dynamic-plastic, epigenetic, and transformative actions of the subject-person. Generativity inevitably requires an educational, formative, and institutional process that recognizes the educational value of guidance-oriented actions as the primary and foundational levers of each individual talent. Yet it is through desire, and within desire, that generativity transforms the dimension of freedom and responsibility of the Living Being — acting upon the intentionality of pedagogical logoi, understood as processes of authentic knowledge transformation.
Prof.ssa Emiliana Mannese - 2023

The UNESCO Chair in Generative Pedagogy and Educational Systems to Tackle Inequality is an international center of excellence for research and teaching, established within the framework of the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme at the University of Salerno. It operates in collaboration with UNESCO to promote advanced research, training, and scientific dissemination programs.

It focuses on strategic sectors for the Global Agenda—such as culture and education—and functions as a territorial laboratory capable of connecting scientific knowledge, contextual needs, and public policies.

The Chair operates as a hub of excellence integrated into international networks aimed at sharing knowledge, people, communities, and best practices, fostering dialogue between universities, research centers, institutions, and civil society.

Key research areas include, among others:

Sustainable development;
Education;
Peace;
Human rights;
Social cohesion.

A qualifying element of the UNESCO Chair is the adoption of a transdisciplinary approach involving national and international academic and scientific networks, as well as research bodies and specialized institutions, in order to address the complexity of contemporary challenges. In this perspective, scientific cooperation becomes a strategic lever for the innovation of knowledge and educational practices.

Furthermore, the UNESCO Chair promotes structured forms of international cooperation, particularly along North-South and South-South axes, with the aim of contributing to integral human development, the reduction of inequalities, and the strengthening of the institutional capacities of the territories involved.

As a center for research, training, and international cooperation, the UNESCO Chair in Generative Pedagogy and Educational Systems to Tackle Inequality brings pedagogical knowledge, territories, and educational policies into dialogue to act on educational poverty and social and territorial divides.

This international academic project of high-level training, action-research, and cooperation is based on the paradigm of Generative Pedagogy and the World-System founded and theorized by Emiliana Mannese (2011-2026) and on the application of the Methodological Protocol of Generative Orientation and Organizational Systems (O.Ge.S.O.). It assumes orientation as a strategic pedagogical method for personal development, support for decision-making and choice processes, and the promotion of individual and collective well-being. From this perspective, organizational systems are understood as pedagogical devices capable of generating educational, social, and institutional value.

Through original and innovative pedagogical models and educational methods, the Chair promotes the creation of generative learning environments and the construction of Thinking Communities (Mannese, Violante & Buttafuoco, 2021), based on school-territory co-design, educational co-responsibility, and the care of common goods, within a framework of social justice and the democracy of knowledge.

The Chair's activities are cross-cutting across the fields of education, social sciences, culture, and communication, in alignment with the priorities outlined by the UNESCO Medium-Term Strategy (2022-2029) and the 2030 Agenda, with particular reference to Sustainable Development Goal 4.

Gender equality, the fight against structural inequalities, and the promotion of human rights constitute the transversal axes of the Chair's scientific and institutional commitment. This commitment is oriented toward enhancing the generative potential of every individual-person and building educational systems capable of combining equity, responsibility, and sustainability, from the perspective of Homo Generativus (Mannese, 2023).

Prof.Virgilio D’Antonio
Magnifico Rettore dell’Università degli Studi di Salerno

Prof.ssa Emiliana Mannese

Chair Holder

PhD, she is Full Professor of General and Social Pedagogy at the Department of Human, Philosophical and Education Sciences (DISUFF) of the University of Salerno.

PhD, Full Professor of General and Social Pedagogy at the Department of Human, Philosophical and Education Sciences (DISUFF) of the University of Salerno.

She is the Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in "Generative Pedagogy and Educational Systems to Tackle Inequality", a role in which she directs high-level training, action-research, and international cooperation activities aimed at building educational systems focused on reducing educational poverty and territorial inequalities.

She serves as the Scientific Director of the Observatory on Training Processes and Territorial Analysis, a research center dedicated to the study of educational phenomena, territorial contexts, and orientation processes, with a specific focus on dynamics of equity, participation, and integral human development.

Furthermore, she holds the position of Editor-in-Chief of the Class A University Journal "Attualità Pedagogiche", actively contributing to the national and international scientific debate on general and social pedagogy, training, and the transformation of educational systems.

Her scientific production is situated within a solid epistemological and methodological framework, centered on the development of the Generative Pedagogy and World-System paradigm and the analysis of the relationship between education, organizational systems, labor, orientation, and community. Her scientific and institutional activity is oriented toward promoting a democracy of knowledge, based on the pedagogical generativity of individuals and territories, in alignment with UNESCO’s strategic priorities and the 2030 Agenda.

Main Publications:

Manual of Generative Pedagogy and World-System. Epistemologies and Thinking Communities for Homo Generativus (2023);
Pedagogy and Politics. Building Thinking Communities, with Violante and Buttafuoco, Pensa Multimedia (2021);
Effective Orientation for a Pedagogy of Work and Organizations, FrancoAngeli (2019).

Scientific Team

The Scientific Team represents the strategic and steering core of the UNESCO Chair in "Generative Pedagogy and Educational Systems to Tackle Inequality".

It is responsible for scientific governance, the definition of the epistemological framework, theoretical structures, and methodological apparatuses. Furthermore, it ensures the alignment of research, training, dissemination, and Third Mission activities with UNESCO's principles and priorities.

Prof.ssa Maria Grazia Lombardi

Prof.ssa Maria Ricciardi

Dott.ssa Raffaela Marigliano

Scientific Organizational Secretariat

The Scientific-Organizational Secretariat supports the operational implementation of the UNESCO Chair’s activities.

Prof.ssa Maria Chiara Castaldi

Research Team

The Research Team is a broad, plural, and transdisciplinary structure that integrates academic, institutional, and professional expertise, operating within a logic of transformation-oriented research.

Alongside university professors and researchers, it includes high-profile non-academic figures from institutional, political, and cultural spheres. Their contribution is strategic for anchoring the Chair’s activities to real-world contexts, decision-making processes, and contemporary social challenges.

About the Chair