





















































Becoming Support Teachers at the University of Foggia During the Pandemic. An Exploratory Survey


Elementa
Intersections between Philosophy, Epistemology 
and Empirical Perspectives

2 
(2022) 

1-2

Transitions

Edited by Tommaso Sgarro

First Section

Tommaso Sgarro
Editorial I – Transitions: New and Different Perspectives 9

Tommaso Sgarro
The Human “Historicity” as a Permanent Transition 13 
in the Philosophy of Ignacio Ellacuría

Luis Roca Jusmet
François Jullien: The Double Transit of Human Life 27

Jordi Riba Miralles
The Event, beyond the Permanent Crisis 37

Alessia Franco
For an Epistemology of Transition: Paul B. Preciado, 51 
Psychoanalysis and the Regime of Sexual Difference

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Elementa. Intersections between Philosophy, Epistemology and Empirical Perspectives

Second Section

Tommaso Sgarro
Editorial II – Governing Transitions 67

Pierpaolo Limone - Maria Grazia Simone
Becoming Support Teachers at the University of Foggia 71 
During the Pandemic. An Exploratory Survey

Francesca Finestrone
Music: For a Sustainable Community and the Promotion 85 
of Well-being

Gennaro Balzano - Vito Balzano
Educating for Transition in Work Contexts 101

Giuseppina Maria Patrizia Surace
The Future We Want: The Transition to Adulthood 111 
of Unaccompanied Minors

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Becoming Support Teachers 
at the University of Foggia 
During the Pandemic 1

 *

An Exploratory Survey

Pierpaolo Limone 
1 - Maria Grazia Simone 

2

1 Learning Science hub, Università degli Studi di Foggia (Italy)
2 Università telematica eCampus

doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elementa-2022-0102-lisi
 pierpaolo.limone@unifg.it
 mariagrazia.simone@uniecampus.it

Abstract 

The paper aims to deepen the characteristics, training needs and critical issues related to 
the initial training of the support teachers in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first 
part offers a synthetic theoretical framework about the problem. The second part presents 
the results, still in the initial phase of elaboration, of an exploratory survey conducted 
among some students attending the active training internship (TFA, fifth cycle) at the 
University of Foggia. An initial analysis of the results reveals the profile of a rather moti-
vated aspiring support teacher, eager to acquire new skills, with a good level of confidence 
in technology. The article proposes, in the final part, paths for reflection and action that 
can be used by training designers and academic decision makers in order to optimize 
future specialization training for support teachers, at multiple levels. 

Keywords: inclusion; incoming training; pandemic; professional role; special needs 
teacher.

 * The authors jointly planned the overall design of the contribution. P. Limone is 
responsible for writing paragraphs 1 and 4, M. G. Simone for paragraphs 2 and 3.

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mailto:pierpaolo.limone@unifg.it
mailto:mariagrazia.simone@uniecampus.it 
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Pierpaolo Limone - Maria Grazia Simone

1. Literature review

In the rich Italian pedagogical and cultural debate on the issues of scholastic 
integration of disabled pupils, the voice has rarely been given to the direct 
protagonists: the teachers, who carry it out every day in Italian schools 
(Canevaro et al., 2011). 

During the university specialization to become a support teacher, the 
student is called to fight against many stereotypes, and even “misunder-
standings” (Cottini, 2017). They are rooted in school practices and can 
become obstacles for the development of the professional role idea and 
for inclusion in teaching/learning contexts in which disabled pupils are 
present.

These stereotypes may concern the teaching role, others the idea of 
the student. They can be summarized as follows:
• The assimilation of the support teacher figure to a “minor” category, 

compared to the curricular one, even in the presence of specialized 
training (Trisciuzzi & Galanti, 2001).

• The difficulty in seeing, in support teacher, a “system figure”, a profes-
sional resource available to the whole class, and not just the one who cares 
about the disabled student (Mura, 2014; Nes, Demo, & Ianes, 2017).

• The idea that the disabled student is “owned” by the support teacher. 
This generates the tendency to delegate and relieve the teaching team 
from a series of responsibilities (Trisciuzzi & Galanti, 2001; Canevaro, 
d’Alonzo, & Ianes, 2009; Canevaro et al., 2011). This situation produces 
many obstacles to participation and inhibit the creation of an inclusive 
learning environment.

• The poorly evolving representation of the disabled pupil and his conse-
quent being above all a “case” (D’Alessio, 2011; Dovigo, 2014; Goussot, 
2015), rather than a person.

Despite these numerous critical issues, we agree with those who said 
that another support teacher training is possible (Canevaro & Ianes, 2019). 
It is feasible, according to our point of view, if the students, in academic 
specialization paths, is offered quality of the learning activities, calibrated 
on his training needs and with a strong technological component.

The issue of training and initial academic specialization for support 
teachers represents, today, an open question that is requiring important 
reflections.

It is no longer tolerable, in fact, that this kind of teachers may find 
themselves taking care of children, pre-adolescents and adolescents, with 
various types of disabilities or deficits, without being able to boast adequate 
theoretical and methodological skills.

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Becoming Support Teachers at the University of Foggia During the Pandemic

The legislative process that introduced in Italy the Active Training 
Internship Courses (TFA) wanted to generate a specialized academic prep-
aration and a clear professional qualification of these teachers to contrast 
stereotypes and favors the scholastic inclusion of disabled students.

The current transformation of the training curriculum of the special-
ized support teacher, introduced by Legislative Decree no. 66/2017 under 
Law no. 107/2015, is animating a series of theoretical, epistemological and 
methodological reflections on:
• the professional skills of this kind of teacher;
• the principles of inclusion shared internationally (think of ICF classification);
• how to make this competitive and qualified figure.

From the attendance of the Active Training Internship Courses, the 
figure of a support teacher emerges with teaching, planning, theoretical, 
methodological and relational skills regarding disabilities, capable to influ-
ence contexts (Santi, 2015; Santi & Ruzzante, 2016) and promote learning 
and inclusion of all.

Academic programs of specialization for support teachers becomes 
an indispensable training ground for the acquisition of specialist and 
transversal skills and educational sensitivities about diversities. All of this 
are essential for making the setting inclusive, the learning proposal and 
promoting the school of differences.

As Bocci, Guerini and Travaglini (2020) points out, specialization on 
the themes of pedagogy and special education needs, requires a reflection 
on the models of inclusive action that are emerging at the international 
level. A greater degree of awareness is required, a more accentuated ability 
to read situations and critically analyze them, managing to grasp what 
escapes common attention. This implies that the training on special educa-
tion theory and methods must characterize all teachers, not only who have 
to teach to disabled students. 

Academic specialization courses for support teachers have always had 
a marked theoretical-practical feature. For this reason, this kind of course 
have regulations that provided for complete disbursement in presence, 
with mandatory attendance.

For a year and a half now, the dramatic planetary presence of the 
Covid-19 virus in our daily lives has made it essential to resort to distance 
learning to face the emergency of the closure of schools of all levels. At 
the same time, communication, education and learning technologies have 
made it possible to attend university specialization courses for support 
teachers entirely online.

The online activation of this kind of courses was introduced by 
the Interministerial Decree no. 94/2020 for students of the fifth cycle 

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(academic year 2019/20). The subsequent ministerial decree no. 858/2020, 
issued following the persistence of the pandemic, also allowed practical and 
laboratory activities to be carried out online.

This significant transformation has required universities to redesign 
the teaching and learning paths in order to be delivered entirely online. 

In University of Foggia case, the redesign actions, due to the persistence 
of the pandemic, were carried out taking into account three convictions:
a. See in the online course not an emergency path, a substitute for what 

the face-to-face course should have been, but an important possibility 
to free learning from the space and time of the university classroom and 
thus make it more accessible for a wider audience of students. Clear 
advantages are thus obtained also with respect to the needs of social 
distancing for reasons of prevention, the reconciliation of life / work 
times, transport, etc.

b. Perceive, in the possibility of specializing online, a significant opportu-
nity for professional and also personal growth. It is necessary to react to 
the adverse event, by tracing living in a pandemic era, as a significant 
opportunity for learning and developing resilience. One can look at the 
emergency beyond a deficient perspective (the one that complains about 
the lack of personal freedom, security, direct contact with the other, etc.), 
to see it as a “generative field of stimuli, actions and reflections and even 
conceptualizations from which to derive learning. In this sense, it can 
be an emancipating experience” (Paparella, Limone, & Cinnella, 2020).

c. Set up the teaching activities by providing practical tasks not only in 
the workshops but also during the moments of frontal teaching, to 
encourage learning by doing.

From unforeseen situations, from great upheavals, it is not possible to 
go out the same as before. Every opportunity for change, in an evolutionary 
perspective, must be welcomed and exploited in one’s favor. In this way, a 
precious opportunity for education and development is gained (Limone & 
Simone, 2020).

2. Materials and methods

The research problem is the following: the professional figure of the 
support teacher requires to develop, in the initial training course, a good 
synthesis of skills, both specialized and transversal of inclusive teaching 
(Cottini, 2014; Camedda & Santi, 2016; d’Alonzo, 2016). This must also 
be guaranteed through online specialization courses. 

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Becoming Support Teachers at the University of Foggia During the Pandemic

The research question is a cognitive one: who are the teachers 
preparing to specialize as support teachers in times of pandemic?

To try to answer to these questions, in the period February-June 2021 
we conduct an exploratory survey at the Specialization Courses for support 
teachers activated at the University of Foggia (Italy). The qualitative-quan-
titative survey, carried out using a multiple choice questionnaire adminis-
tered to about no. 383 postgraduates, aimed to outline: the profile of the 
trainees, their training needs, the teaching motivations, the representation 
of the necessary skills, the inclusion idea, the relationship with technolo-
gies and educational experience in a pandemic era.

The sample survey was total: the information survey is performed on 
all units that make up the population under study.

The interviewees were attending the following study subjects:
• Special teaching for intellectual disability and generalized developmental 

disorders (Grade: Second Grade Secondary School).
• Pedagogy of the helping relationship (Grade: Primary School).

Numerically, the first group was made up of no. 202 subjects, the 
second from no. 181 subjects.

The students were joined by the exploratory survey in the final phase 
of these two courses. In both courses, they were asked to fill in the protocol 
individually and, subsequently, to confront each other within on line 
discussion groups between students, discussing their impressions. During 
the plenary discussion phase, with the coordination of the teacher in charge 
of the two courses, all the students were able to socialize the impressions 
collected in their group following the compilation of the questionnaire and 
listen when it emerged from the discussion of all the other groups.

As regards the questionnaire, it should be noted that it was not a 
protocol to detect a sort of “customer satisfaction” on the activities in 
progress, nor to evaluate the effectiveness/efficiency of the course itself, but 
to trace some dimensions underlying the development of professional role 
in the initial training phase.

There is a large debate on the initial training of the support teacher 
(Chiappetta Cajola & Ciraci, 2013; Cottini, 2014; Florian, 2014; Goussot, 
2014; Ianes, 2014; Mura, 2014; Zappaterra, 2014; Ianes, 2015; Mura, 2015; 
Ciraci & Isodori, 2017; Boccia, Guerini, & Travaglini, 2020) which was 
used as the theoretical background for the formulation of the questionnaire. 

As a reference for the processing of the questions and for the formu-
lation of the items, the Profile of inclusive teachers from the European 
Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (EADSNE, 2012) 
was used. Among the objectives of the document are: (a) identify a frame-
work of values and areas of competence valid for any program initial 

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training; (b) highlight the core values and areas of expertise in the prepara-
tion of all teachers to work in inclusive school environments. 

The data was collected using a questionnaire administered with 
CAWI method and anonymous distribution.

The questionnaire consists of no. 30 multiple choice questions. It 
was an exploratory questionnaire of inquiry (de Ketele & Roegiers, 2013), 
anonymous and self-administered online. 

The survey tool was uploaded to Google Forms and the interviewees 
were able to access the on line compilation via the relative link.

The exploratory survey tool was divided into the following areas, not 
visible to respondents, which correspond to some blocks of questions:
0. Registry and personal data section.
1. Teaching motivation and professional skills (questions no. 1 to no. 5).
2. Professional role idea and required skills (question from no. 6 to no. 9).
3. Relationship with disabilities and inclusion idea (questions no. 9 to 

no. 18).
4. Relationship with technologies (questions no. 19 to no. 24).
5. Covid-19 and distance learning (questions from no. 25 to no. 30).

The questions relating to the detection of attitudes provided for struc-
tured responses on a 7-point Likert scale. An open question was provided 
for any in-depth and narrative needs.

In the design of the questionnaire, the known critical elements linked 
to its use were considered (Bailey, 1982): social desirability (tendency to 
respond in a conformist way), acquiescence (tendency to agree on every-
thing) and systematic tendencies (constant bias that leads to giving extreme 
responses or always using the central point of the response scale).

The first block of questions (personal data section) contains questions 
aimed at detecting the socio-demographic information of the students (age, 
sex, last degree obtained, any other qualifications, current job position, etc.).

The second block of questions presents items whose purpose is to 
detect the reasons that led the students to attend the specialization course, 
their representation of the knowledge / skills / abilities useful for improving 
their professional role in an inclusive perspective, their idea of teaching, 
the critical issues that can be linked to being a support teacher. Those 
who already teaches, perhaps due to the fact of being a teacher with an 
annual contract, were asked for information about: their relationship with 
colleagues, with the overall group of students, with the disabled student, 
with his/her family. 

In the third section of the questionnaire we wanted to investigate the 
interviewees’ idea of school inclusion and how they undertake to increase 
the participation of the disabled student in class activities.

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Becoming Support Teachers at the University of Foggia During the Pandemic

The fourth block of questions concerned the relationship of trainees 
with education and learning technologies. It was not only asked which 
technological aids they use most frequently, for what purposes and whether 
or not there are critical issues in their use. Information was also requested 
regarding the actual role of technologies in favoring the process of inclu-
sion of disabled pupils.

The fifth and final block of questions urges the interviewees to reflect 
on their teaching and training practices in times of pandemic. In particular, 
if the closure of schools and the distance learning influenced the relation-
ship with the disabled student, such as critical issues that emerged and, 
possibly, which advantage areas.

3. Results and discussions

Here we offer a first analysis of the results, produced on frequency research, 
which in the future requires further elaboration and deepening. 

For the moment, this first analysis intends to provide the general 
identikit of the student who attends specialization courses for support at 
Foggia University.

The group under investigation is mainly represented by women (F = 
372, M = 37). The prevailing age group is 40-50 years old (49%). The 
main educational qualification is high school diploma (44%). The vast 
majority of the people has no other qualifications (63%). A substantial 
share is employed as a teacher with an annual assignment (56%).

3.1.  Teaching role and skills representation

We are faced with a trainees group absolutely satisfied to have approached 
this profession (52%). The reasons for choosing teaching role are a specific 
vocation for teaching (51%) and on the interest in developmental age 
students (50%).

Among the teacher skills, 90% preferences focused on relational and 
empathic ones, followed by observation skills (84%), pedagogical and 
psychological ones (77%) and methodological ones (75%).

The largest portion of the interviewed group (66%) believes that 
teaching is configured first of all as an educational relationship with the 
student, soliciting his “knowing how to be” (65%) and which translates 
into support actions to be offered to the student (59%). To a lesser extent, 

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teaching is seen as simple moment of knowledge transmission (63%) or 
social mission (72%).

Those who already teach, show discomfort because they feel a certain 
lack of specific skills in terms of special education (24%) and the extent of 
student disabilities (37%).

3.2.  Inclusion area

Regarding the involvement of the support teachers in class activities, as 
many subjects (56%) complain of feeling scarcely involved. 44% of them 
found little willingness on the part of colleagues to adapt the curriculum to 
the rhythms and learning needs of disabled pupils. Support teachers feels 
poorly valued by their colleagues (46%). On the part of the class, on the 
other hand, they feel perceived as a valid resource (54%). The relationship 
with the family of the disabled student is also positive (62%).

Regarding the strategies to favor the disabled student inclusion in the 
classroom and a more direct relationship with peers, the interviewees had 
multiple answer options and indicated group work (70%), peer tutoring 
(61%), theatrical, artistic and musical activities (59%).

To raise the quality of inclusion of disabled students, it is useful to 
increase their skills in the area of effectiveness and self-esteem (77%), social 
and relational skills aimed at peers (84%), personal autonomy (73%). 
Technologies are considered, by a large portion of the interviewed group 
(56%), as valid tools to encourage inclusion.

3.3.  Technology area

The interviewees (in the percentage of 54%) judge their relationship with 
the technologies and computer tools used in their usual teaching practices 
to be quite good. The presence of technology in teaching is considered 
quite important (69%) and very important (25%). The frequency of use 
for educational purposes is daily (4.9%) and weekly (37%).

Support teachers make more frequent use of technology to support 
disabled pupils learning, considering it an important aid for preparing 
teaching materials (40%), for carrying out research and disciplinary 
insights (35%). Among the various tools, there is a preference for IWB, 
multimedia interactive whiteboard (33%). The possibility to use specific 
software for disability (26%) and specific App for disciplinary learning is 
discreet (24%).

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Becoming Support Teachers at the University of Foggia During the Pandemic

The utility dimension that the interviewees find in information tech-
nologies in teaching concern: support to disabled student learning moti-
vation (45%), favoring collaborative learning opportunities among peers 
(40%), sharing knowledge with the class group (39%), guaranteeing the 
possibility for the teacher to build personalized teaching materials (42%).

Among the critical issues founded with technology, the interviewed 
group agrees on a lack of ICT equipment and devices in the school where 
they work (35%) and the school structural limitations (37%) . Few people 
report deficiencies in their computer skills (10%) or disinterest of disabled 
student towards them (8%).

3.4.  Area relating to pandemic and distance learning

During the health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the inter-
viewees who already teaches were able to continue to meet their students 
with disabilities in school (47%) while an equally consistent part of them 
made use of video lesson (37%).

The difficulties most encountered in distance learning can be summa-
rized in technical problems, related to connection (26%) and equally rela-
tively difficult to understand by the disabled student (79%) and how to 
help from family (21%).

Overall, the experience of distance learning is assigned a sufficiency 
rating (30%) and very few are enthusiastic about it (12%).

In interviewees opinion, distance learning was found to be deficient 
mainly on inclusion front (54%) and on the relational one (51%).

This poor consideration of distance learning by interviewed group 
was confirmed in some control questions and open questions. In summary, 
it is stated that distance learning was a necessary support in this period of 
emergency but, at the same time, it failed to guarantee the inclusion and 
relationship needs of disabled student.

4. Conclusion

The data emerged from this exploratory survey, although still embry-
onic, make it possible to develop a summary of the professional profile of 
support teachers who are entering the school system in a difficult historical 
moment like the one due to the pandemic. Some points of reflection can 
be taken to identify the training needs of support teachers but also of 
academic training programs. 

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Respondents are gradually building their professional role. As Pellerey 
(2018) states, the focus of the process of building professional role and 
identity is undoubtedly on the human person. This kind of identity is less 
and less defined and solicited externally and socially, while the constructive 
process that the subject must carry out becomes more and more central. 

An important lever for addressing the critical issues currently 
connected to the exercise of the teaching role, especially during initial 
training, is to work in a double sense: supporting the structuring of profes-
sional identity and supporting teaching motivation (Piccinno & Simone, 
2015). The support teacher should be conceived not as an additional 
figure, but as a strategic one to make the school an increasingly inclusive 
environment capable of enhancing differences.

In the near future we need to aim for structural changes in teaching 
training. From our point of view, one of the keystones lies in the integra-
tion, in teaching practice and professional knowledge, of a digital peda-
gogy to be included on a permanent basis, and not occasionally, in teacher 
training programs at all stages of their careers.

It is now agreed that the lack of specific preparation in this sense, 
through the preparation of specific training courses (Limone & Pace, 
2016), inhibits the planning of quality educational itineraries; this can 
only generate additional difficulties in teaching and learning in times of 
emergency and also in usual teaching practice.

The development of information and communication technology has 
brought a surprising and revolutionary challenge to the idea and practice 
of traditional education. Internet technology offers new opportunities to 
integrate face-to-face learning with online learning methods. In the future, 
there is a trend towards using blended learning scenarios, combining 
various forms of learning and integrating a variety of ways to access content 
using mobile technology.

It is now necessary that the technological results obtained become 
part of the teacher’s professional action, between presence and distance, 
through the reconstruction of new identity meanings recognizable only in 
the light of an authentic, meaningful and strategic learning (Entwistle & 
McCune, 2004).

The university, in this process, plays a fundamental role as driving 
force for continuous teachers training and to respond to the needs, not 
only emergency ones, of the present time.

University is asked to redesign training courses that propose tech-
nologies not as simple teaching support tools, but as cultural mediators, 
capable of affecting the logic and practice of the university institution also 
with regard to higher education and research (Loiodice, 2011).

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From the university institution training opportunities and experiences 
are hoped to make the teacher an effective protagonist of the complexity 
of scientific, methodological and technological innovation. Research, 
teaching and learning practices, student growth and social development 
will benefit.

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Riassunto
L’articolo intende approfondire caratteristiche, bisogni formativi e criticità legati alla 
formazione iniziale del docente di sostegno in epoca di pandemia da Covid-19. Nella 
prima parte si offre un quadro teorico di sintesi sul problema. La seconda parte presenta 
i risultati, seppur ancora in fase iniziale di elaborazione, di una indagine esplorativa 
condotta presso alcuni allievi frequentanti il tirocinio formativo attivo (TFA, quinto 
ciclo) all’Università degli Studi di Foggia. Da una prima analisi dei risultati emerge 
il profilo di un aspirante docente di sostegno piuttosto motivato, desideroso di acquisire 
nuove competenze, con un buon livello di confidenza con la tecnologia. L’articolo propo-
ne, nella parte finale, delle piste di riflessione e di intervento che possono essere utilizzate 
dai progettisti della formazione e dai decision makers accademici allo scopo di ottimiz-
zare i percorsi di specializzazione futuri per i docenti di sostegno, a più livelli.

Copyright (©) 2022 Pierpaolo Limone, Maria Grazia Simone 
Editorial format and graphical layout: copyright (©) LED Edizioni Universitarie

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 
 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to cite this paper:
Limone, P., & Simone, M. G. (2022). Becoming support teachers at the University 
of Foggia during the pandemic. An exploratory survey. Elementa. Intersections between 
Philosophy, Epistemology and Empirical Perspectives, 2(1-2), 71-83. doi: https://dx.doi.
org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-lisi

Elementa. Intersections between Philosophy, Epistemology and Empirical Perspectives – 2 (2022) 1-2 
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https://dx.doi.org/10.7358/elem-2022-0102-lisi
https://www.ledonline.it/elementa 

	Sommario.pdf
	First Section
	Editorial I
	Transitions:
New and Different Perspectives

	The Human “Historicity”
as a Permanent Transition
in the Philosophy of Ignacio Ellacuría
	François Jullien: The Double Transit
of Human Life
	The Event, beyond the Permanent Crisis
	For an Epistemology of Transition:
Paul B. Preciado, Psychoanalysis
and the Regime of Sexual Difference

	Second Section
	Editorial II
	Governing Transitions

	Becoming Support Teachers
at the University of Foggia
During the Pandemic *
	Music: For a Sustainable Community and the Promotion of Well-being
	Educating for Transition in Work Contexts
	The Future We Want:
The Transition to Adulthood
of Unaccompanied Minors
	An Exploratory Survey





