Currently facing the issue of empirical research in education is about being faced with a reality decades and a number of open questions. It is these issues that focuses the attention of the author. This is because it is impossible to develop a rigorously scientific discourse on the recent past empirical research in education in Italy because of lack of analytical studies for reconstruction of the processes so far developed. And also because we are in the midst of a transition, characterized to speeches by the presence of a culture able to problematize the history of education. The author follows the suggestion made effective by Rorty and tries to promote the conversation as a method for keeping an open dialogue within the research community is the condition necessary to fertilize the culture of research.

Studi sulla Formazione, Anno XII, I/II-2009