Cultural Heritage Education for Post-Disaster Resilience: Lessons from L'Aquila's Recovery

Heritage education and equal opportunities, as transmissible utopias, are dominant themes and constructs in our society. The central idea is that those who do not enjoy cultural heritage are deprived of important tools for reading reality, which are the key to accessing their symbolic repertoires. The paper explores the role of heritage education as a tool to improve literacy, emphasizing the importance of extending learning beyond the boundaries of the classroom and involving the entire territorial community. Cultural heritage, with its multiple resources, can contribute to creating an "open and extensive" educational system, transforming community spaces into learning environments full of opportunities. The contribution illustrates how the city can become an educational space capable of strengthening the skills of individuals, in particular students, provided that the cultural heritage present in the area is enhanced through effective forms of mediation and solid methodologies, capable of responding to the specific needs of users. In particular, the contribution focuses on the case of the city of L'Aquila, hit by the 2009 earthquake, which caused a profound "existential displacement" in individuals, altering the personal, cultural and social heritage of the community, whose identity now needs to be "re-founded". To do this, the community – and in particular the school community – needs suitable tools, capable of decoding the signs and symbols of its territory, through a multifocal reading and an interdisciplinary perspective of cultural heritage. These tools can foster a positive perception of the territory, helping individuals to overcome the difficulties encountered in the post-catastrophic phase and strengthen their resilience. This study highlighted the crucial role of heritage education as an essential tool for improving not only literacy but also social cohesion in communities, especially those affected by catastrophic events. In a context where traditional learning methods may prove insufficient, an innovative approach is proposed that transcends the boundaries of conventional education.