The evaluation of a complex educational project: the point of view of the psycho-social workers

The evaluation of complex educational interventions remains problematic to date also because of the amount of intervening variables to be considered. The nonprofit Association Maestri di Strada (MdS) implements projects for the social inclusion of youth in the eastern suburbs of Naples. In particular, the "Being There in the Neighborhood Project" aims to reduce school dropout and deviance through socio-educational actions involving adolescents, families, schools and the territory, also based on the Social Bond Theory. This study represents the first phase of a process of evaluation of the projects actions and aims to actively involve MdS operators in identifying good indicators of the effectiveness of their work. Three focus-groups were conducted with MdS psychologists, educators and artists, audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, The corpus was subjected to Thematic Analysis of Elementary Contexts using T-LabPlus software. The results (7 clusters) show that psycho-social workers suggest monitoring the processes of operator-parent-pupil alliance, improvement of school climate, involvement of children in workshop activities, through qualitative as well as quantitative instruments. These results are consistent with the Social Bond Theory, according to which restoring a good bond with institutions, through targeted extracurricular actions, protects against deviant behavior.