Educational Sciences, Pedagogical Sciences, Developmental Psychology

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Faculty
- The Auxilium Faculty is an institution of excellence that develops and innovates in the areas of prevention and the holistic education of the person in order to train educational professionals, prepare lay people and religious in the new evangelization environment who are able to dialogue in intercultural and inter-religious settings, and empower women and young people.
Courses
- To cultivate the talent to educate and train education professionals who are competent and passionate, the Auxilium Faculty is constantly engaged in innovating the training skills available and the strategies for teaching and learning, in order to ensure a holistic education in the field of the educational sciences.
Research
- The Auxilium Faculty participates in research in the international scientific community as an interlocutor for reflection in the area of pedagogical knowledge; it also establishes networks with other institutions and provides a specific, unique contribution to the education of women and young people.
Third Mission
- The Auxilium Faculty gives special attention to the society in which it lives.
  Along with its foundational goals of training and research by its faculty and students, it is committed to communicating and promoting pedagogical formation to sustain a culture of life. It understands its cultural mission as a presence "in the service of thought" in "pastoral care of the culture" and in "intellectual charity"; it offers its services in the "territories" in which it functions as a cultural reference centre for the study and promotion of education policies.
Services
- #AuxiliumLife is the strong sense of belonging, the team spirit, and the educational strength of the community to build together a welcoming environment that characterizes relationships; it is also a stimulus to live and study to attain the goal of a degree and actualize the dream of cultivating in ourselves and others the talent to educate.

Home > Courses > What are Educational Sciences?

What are Educational Sciences?

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.
G. K. Chesterson

What do they involve?back to top

Educational sciences are a range of disciplines that use a various approaches to tackle the complex subject of education.
The term educational sciences (in the plural) was first used in the second half of the 20th century, and reflects the complexity of education and, at the same time, the expansion both of pedagogical knowledge and the concept of education itself. It provides more direct and in-depth study of the individuals involved (of all types and all ages), the contents, the duration (all stages of life) and the setting (not only within the family and at school, but also extracurricular education). This led to UNESCO’s division of education into the categories of formal, non-formal and informal as early as the 1960s.
The various expressions currently in use, such as “educational sciences and/or training sciences”, “education science”, “pedagogical studies”, “pedagogy” and “pedagogical sciences” have different meanings depending on the individuals or universities that use them.

The origin of Faculties of Educational Sciences in Italyback to top

The institutionalisation of educational sciences was a gradual process, and varied greatly between countries. In Romance-speaking countries the concept of a Faculty of Educational Sciences first appeared around the 1970s , and therefore a long time after the creation of the renowned Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Geneva, which in 1929-30 took on the name Institut des Sciences de l'Éducation.

I In Italy, the first Faculty to be given this name was the Pontifical Faculty of Educational Sciences «Auxilium» , founded in Turin in 1970 and transferred to Rome in 1978, which from the start offered five-year courses (3 years + 2 years).
This was followed by the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the Salesian Pontifical University (1973).

The reform of the Italian university system under Law no. 341/1990 introduced the Degree in Educational Sciences. Since then, the majority of Italian universities have created a Faculty of Educational Sciences; some, however, use the title Faculty of Educational and Training Sciences.

The Degree in Educational Sciencesback to top

Currently, having signed up to the Bologna Process, all university academic courses follow the 3+2 formula, incorporating a first-cycle Degree lasting three years and a two-year Specialisation Degree, approximately equivalent to a Master’s Degree.
The type and number of Degree and Specialisation Degree Courses show the diverse range of specialist areas in the education profession and, consequently, the varied organisation of the courses offered and professional opportunities available.

In the UK and USA the university structure in the field of education still retains the concept of a Faculty (College) of Education, with various courses and training types; few universities have introduced the term "Educational Sciences".

Future developmentsback to top

If we want to maintain education that fully respects humans as individuals, the position of pedagogical sciences within educational sciences needs to be restated and unanimously recognised, to avoid it becoming lost or marginalised.