Reflexivity and ecological framework: Embodied languages and processes in a research on university intership

Reflective practice is a key resource for lifelong learning and for the possibility of situated action in dealing with open-ended problematic situations. The article focuses particular attention on the forms of reflexivity emerging from the experience of students who are interning as educators, as well as on the space for reflective practices in the complex ecology of university internships. Drawing on a multi-method research with undergraduate students combining questionnaire, interviews, focus groups, and analysis of dialogic situations during the reprocessing of internship experiences, the article examines the reflective experiences emerging from second- and third-year students in education, highlighting in particular the search for spaces for reflection and the use of a plurality of languages and shapes. The research brings out the reflective practices, tools, and communities experienced during the university internship and within its organizational settings. The results show a use of reflexivity in the students’ experience that is mostly related to informal spaces of dialogue; the search for different languages and channels of expression to outline and share with others the thoughts emerging during the practice; and the difficulty in finding, in the intersections between university life and internship in services, a formative ecology capable of valuing connections, embodied experience and plurality of languages as an integral part of a reflective training.

Keywords: ; Systemic reflexivity; training in higher education; embodiment; Art-based learning process

Maria Livia Alga, Chiara Sità, Riflessività ed ecologia formativa: linguaggi e processi embodied in una ricerca sul tirocinio universitario in "EDUCATIONAL REFLECTIVE PRACTICES" 1/2023, pp 245-264, DOI: 10.3280/erp1-2023oa15890