10.6092/issn.3034-8544/18969
The right to education has been recognized as a human right in a number of international conventions, among which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, crucial to ensure the dignity of all individuals. It encompasses the obligation to eliminate discrimination at all levels of the educational system, including the university system. The right to study is also provided by Article 34 of the Italian Constitution, in the framework of the fundamental constitutional principles, constitutional judgments and State and Regional legislation.
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Francesca Cognetti
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Urbana
Right to Research
What Right to Study? A Set of Integrated and Inclusive Policies between the University and the City
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2024-01-25
2024-01-22
2024-01-25
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Francesca Cognetti
2024/01/25
10.6092/issn.3034-8544/18969
183
Polytechnic University of Milan
3034-8544
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Right to Research
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184
What Right to Study? A Set of Integrated and Inclusive Policies between the University and the City
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                                                             URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024               183




What Right to Study? A Set of Integrated
and Inclusive Policies between the
University and the City
CHAIR SESSION 4


Francesca Cognetti

Polytechnic University of Milan

franesca.cognetti@polimi.it


The right to education has been recognized as a human right in a number
of international conventions, among which the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, crucial to ensure the dignity of all individuals. It
encompasses the obligation to eliminate discrimination at all levels of the
educational system, including the university system. The right to study is
also provided by Article 34 of the Italian Constitution, in the framework
of the fundamental constitutional principles, constitutional judgments
and State and Regional legislation.
Among the extensions of the right to education, Appadurai reflected on
the “right to research” 1, as the right to access tools to increase the
knowledge capital essential to foster an active role in policy arenas and
access to the city’s opportunities. In this regard, Appadurai highlights the
need to look at rights not only as a formal status but by measuring the
ability of different subjectivities to put them into practice effectively.
If we look at the right to study as both a status and a sense of belonging
and enhancing subjectivities, the role of the university fits into a whole
system of accessibility of opportunities, in which the city plays a key role.
This perspective opens a vision where the right to study can’t be
considered only as a standard—for example, about “square meters or
number of services per student”—, but a complex set of integrated
policies to enhance and include young people.
A set that is referenced to four main fields.
The first is the right to individual and social well-being, including
psychological and group balance. Many signs reveal the precarious
stability of the young generation, linked to an uncertain future not even
guaranteed by the University. The Covid era has increased anxieties,
loneliness, and inadequacy.
The second is the specific right to well-founded knowledge, which
concerns the possibility for young people to access data in a well-versed
way within a broader “right of scientific citizenship” 2. Scientific

1
  Arjun Appadurai, “The Right to Research,” Globalisation, Societies and Education 4, no. 2 (2006):
167- 177.
2
  Pietro Greco, “La cittadinanza scientifica,” Micron, 9 (2008): 6-7.


                                                                             Copyright 2024 The Author
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                                              URBANA Vol. 1, N. 1, 2024   184



citizenship is about an idea of rights declined in its cultural dimension, in
the fairness of information, access to information and knowledge, and
the quality of knowledge. This awareness is more challenging to mature
in the age of social networks and globalized information systems.
In addition to well-being related to the individual and his or her access to
an articulated idea of culture and knowledge, I highlight a broader right
to protagonism. This third field concerns the possibility of practicing full
citizenship, which means the possibility of having an active role in
society, including the opportunity of independently initiating enterprise
and social innovation projects.
Finally, in the background, we can consider the complex right to quality
of life, which relates to many aspects of young people's everyday life,
outside and inside the university. It includes decent and affordable
housing and the ability to easily attend places for sports, study,
recreation, and leisure.
This perspective is complex and multilevel; the role of the city—public
administration, but also third sector and private actors—is as crucial as
that of the university. Therefore, it can only be fostered by an ecosystem
of subjectivities, in which the university dialogues and collaborates with
others. That is also demonstrated by the behaviours of students who move
to study. Their choice is based not only on the quality of educational offers
but also on evaluating the city in which it is located. Students and their
families thus consider a system of urban limits and opportunities (e.g. the
role of the housing market, educational and labour offerings, and
openness to international contexts and networks).
Thus, right-to-study policies should be implemented as multi-level
integrated policies, analyzing and programming together urban and
university systems.
That is fueled by articulated and complex student needs (not just
consumers and workforce), including how student rights meet other
fragile rights (with a risk of competition on issues such as housing,
mobility and transportation, public spaces and services) and how they
can play an active role in-for the city.
It is also about building a political vision at different scales that can be
declined into an operational dimension that can test this renewed idea of
the right to study.
The challenge for universities today is where this vision is generated,
through which coalitions, and with which policy tools.

References

Appadurai, Arjun. “The Right to Research.” Globalisation, Societies and
Education 4, no. 2 (2006): 167- 177.

Greco, Piero. “La cittadinanza scientifica.” Micron, 9 (2008): 6-7.
