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The main objective of the paper is to address and explore a much-debated issue within the evaluation community: the idea of "democratic evaluation". What exactly is meant by this term? When can an evaluation be said to be democratic? Through the adoption of what behaviours should this ideal translate into concrete working practice? The essay aims to contribute to broadening the community's debate on these questions, which are central at a historical-political moment such as the post-emergence from Covid-19 and in the midst of an international crisis, that between Russia and Ukraine, which calls democratic evaluation into question in our country. On a general level, in fact, the situation of uncertainty due to the unpredictable effects of the pandemic, the social and economic crisis in the country and the consequent growing distrust of the citizens towards the administration seem to have increased the demand for accountability, leading to talk, as in the rest of Europe as well, of a "democratic deficit". On the other hand, recent administrative re-centralization, even assisted by current evaluative practices, only aggravates the inefficiency of public administration. Accountability, freedom and democracy are never given, they need to be defended, always regained: evaluation assumes a strategic role to this end; it can help bring citizens closer to public administration. The crisis between Russia and Ukraine is changing geopolitical balances; the effects of the war economy, inflation, the energy crisis, and the possible escalation of the conflict add to the uncertain situation due to the pandemic. New inequalities and an increase in poverty threaten to generate deep rifts in the country's socioeconomic fabric. Systemic shocks add to chronic problems: a demographic collapse, stagnation, job insecurity, and a lag in digitization. At the same time, the political system fails to represent and stabilize consensus over time. Governments also suffer from this instability, with the inability to design and implement structural reforms for the country, including that of the bureaucracy. Social complexity, chronic problems and systemic shocks, require the ability to apply effective public policies. State intervention and the ability of the bureaucracy to be efficient and responsive to social change are central issues for the health of democracy. Public policies move within a framework of very high complexity, in which the role of evaluation emerges, which should tend to the development of democratic accountability, illuminating decision-making choices through its methodological rigor, analytical capacity and scientific knowledge. The essay thus aims to address the potential of a democratic evaluation that can broaden the number of stakeholders, the field of values that are taken into account, the repertoire of research methods, the field of interest of policies, and the very definition of the objects of evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nel saggio, le autrici presentano i principali risultati ottenuti con la ricerca su "La Valutazione dell'impatto sociale della DaD dopo il Covid 19" in 7 Istituti di Istruzione Superiore (I.I.S.) romani, riflettendo su alcune dimensioni di particolare innovazione sociale per le pratiche didattiche dei docenti e i processi di apprendimento degli studenti in DaD. Durante le interviste, si è prestata particolare attenzione alla ricostruzione delle pratiche didatticoeducative messe a punto dai docenti al fine di rintracciare i primi effetti della DaD/DDI: sull'innovazione metodologico-didattica delle comunità scolastiche; sul livello di apprendimento degli studenti e sul rafforzamento delle relazioni sociali. Dalla ricostruzione delle testimonianze dei docenti e degli studenti coinvolti nella ricerca, le autrici hanno delineato tre profili di DaD/DDI (innovativa, tradizionale e depotenziata), distinti in base ai diversi effetti che le ICT, unitamente alle pratiche didattico/educative messe in atto per il loro utilizzo, hanno esercitato sul consolidamento dell'apprendimento per competenze e sull'ampliamento dei confini della relazionalità. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work explores limits and potentialities of the evaluative field research at the time of Covid-19, taking as example the evaluation of the project "La Gazzetta Olimpica, journal of the school and the neighborhood". The project was born with the aim of supporting the editorial board of the newspaper "La Gazzetta Olimpica", across the spectrum of the various distance education activities put in place by the teachers working for the elementary school "Olympic Village" in Rome during Covid-19 lockdown. The observation of the educational activities, the interviews through digital platforms and the analysis of children's laboratory products are the main observational tools by which the development of children's ability to represent reality and translate it into communicative products (aimed to be disseminated in the neighborhood) have been evaluated. The focus of this analysis is on the impact that the digitalisation of teaching has had on the relations between children, between children and teachers and also between the school and the rest of the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Case Study Research on the territory of Palermo has allowed to identify "constellations of circumstances that work" (Tendler, 1992) beyond the territorial boundaries initially indicated by the client. The case study highlighted how a new model of collaboration between profit, non-profit and public was developed in the Ballarò district, which was reported by several interviewees as an example of success. Involving local actors in the discovery of what worked, has brought to the fore the mechanisms that (interacting with particular contextual factors) have contributed to increase the infrastructures and consequently the social cohesion in the territory. The case study within a theoryoriented evaluation, not centered on the relationship between means and ends, allowed us to observe the complexity of the causal relationships that have been activated in the context and to identify strategies of action, elaborated on the experience of the actors. premises, which otherwise would have gone unnoticed in the eyes of the client. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the paper is to illustrate the theoretical and methodological construction of an evaluation research design "tailored maded" on a complex program by the "Mediamonitor Minor" of the Sapienza University of Rome, "Media Usage in Pre-school. Analysis and Evaluation of the Influence of Digital Media on the Socialization of Children between 0-6". The paper, in particular, illustrates the stages of the research "mixed" strategy designed to analyze and evaluate the effects of the introduction of digital teaching in the kindergarten, with a focus on the observation of changes in attitudes and behavior of children at school and on the development of fields of expertise (the self and the other, images, sounds and colors, etc.), according to Ministerial Guidelines (2012) for the implementation of future skills of children between 3 and 6 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows some highlights of a network evaluation, which was part of a bigger evaluation design of 5 local projects - implemented in Lazio region - for employment insertion for persons in a serious situation of social exclusion. Evaluation had followings main goals: • Network evaluation of local partnerships; • Morphological analysis of networks and their potential sustainability for the future. Evaluators used two techniques for data collection: an evaluation card and interviews to strategic witnesses. The first part of the article is dedicated to illustrate starting assumptions and detailed evaluation results of each project; in the second part general consideration are proposed about state of art of local social network and their potential development in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]