Problems and Purpose

In schools, students have ‘little’ opportunity to actively participate in ‘democracy’ (Stortone, 2025, IV). This results in students often having an insufficient understanding of how democracies can vary. To address this, the project aims to teach students about democracy through enabling them to participate in it. This participation should have a pedagogical effect on the students because ‘participation is intrinsically educational’ (Dewey, 1984). Ultimately, the project aims to reduce the democratic deficit with respect to young people’s political engagement and civic education, and help students develop a ‘participatory mindset’ (Stortone, 2025, IV).

Another issue is that in school, most of the time there is a vertical power structure which can be perceived as similar to ‘prison’ (Stortone, 2025, IV). This is because teachers tend to have all the power and therefore students may feel powerless or excluded from school governance. Therefore, a key aim of the project is to create a more ‘horizontal’ structure whereby students have a voice, ‘vote’, and can set the agenda for school expenditure decisions (Stortone, 2025, IV). Balancing the power structures in student-staff relationships can have ‘positive organisational outcomes’ (Fielding, 2001; Mitra, 2004). Giving students a ‘voice’ has also been shown to coincide with ‘positive youth development’ (Mitra, 2018, p. 477; Eccles et al, 1993). Therefore, a key aim of the initiative is to provide students with a larger voice by adjusting the vertical power structure in schools.

Interestingly, focusing school expenditure on specifically addressing student needs is not a direct aim of the PB in schools’ initiative. Rather, it is deemed a ‘side effect’ of the project (Stortone, 2025, IV). The vital element of the initiative is the ‘various positive spillover effects’ of the process for students and the school in general (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 243).

Background History and Context

The first case of PB in Italy was in 1994. Since then, hundreds of processes have been implemented throughout the country as it has been at the ‘centre of different waves of PB diffusion’ (Bassoli, 2012, p. 1189). Despite this, many of the ‘civic and pedagogical’ elements of PB have failed to emerge as strongly as they have many other western nations, primarily the ‘USA and Portugal’ (Dias et al, 2018; Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 231). PB in Italy has proved to be very challenging to implement, because it gains very limited levels of exposure. Its evolution has been tied to left-wing political groups, and therefore it can regularly be perceived as an ideological tool, rather than an inherently democratic tool (Ganuza and Baiocchi, 2012, pp. 8-9). This has meant that there has been a dearth of institutions in Italy with an interest or an incentive to introduce PB in schools.

The first idea for PB in schools originated ‘quite casually’, from a student doing an internship applying for a grant to implement a PB process in their former school (Cremona) and winning €10,000 (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 231). After the school showed an unexpectedly high level of engagement with the PB process, the decision was taken to attempt to implement the PB in the Capriotti school to attempt to consolidate the PB model and to test whether it was ‘scalable’ (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 232). The initiative began to grow as three additional schools in the province of Varese (Crespi, Candiani, and Curie) decided to start a PB process as well. In 2020, it expanded further and the RIPARTIRE project, backed with almost €2 million euros, began. Accordingly, the project was implemented into many more schools. Ultimately, 13 school PB processes were implemented in eleven schools situated all over the country. Many of these processes had to be ‘reinvented’ due to COVID-19 and had to use online participation extensively (and in some cases, exclusively) (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 240).

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

Overall, the funding of PB in Italy is ‘very complex’ (Stortone, 2025, IV). This is because there are very few incentives for individuals to fund PB. It is widely viewed as ‘not essential’ by the members of staff in schools and the wider public (Stortone, 2025, IV). A mixture of private and public funds was used to fund the process. PB is often dependent on government, IGOs and NGO grants. Most of the money raised for the PB in schools’ initiative was from Fondazione con i Bambini (€2 million) for the RIPARTIRE project.

The aims of the funding entities are not in direct ‘conflict’ with the aims of BiPart, but there is no ‘direct link’ either (Stortone, 2025, IV). The stated aim of Fondazione con i Bambini is to end ‘educational poverty’ (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 232). Conversely, BiPart aims to ‘empower people’ through the introduction of ‘innovative forms of democratic governance and decision-making processes’ in local communities and civic organizations (BiPart, 2021, p. 1). While the aims of Fondazione con i Bambini and BiPart are noticeably different and not necessarily aligned, it is also true that the aims of the respective organisations are not intrinsically in conflict. This led to a primarily positive collaboration between the funding entities of the project.

There are three main actors which organised the PB in schools initiative, and ensured that the process was executed appropriately: the SC, the TC, and Student Representatives.

The Steering Committee (SC) oversees the implementation of the PB in schools process in line with the Statute. It tends not to work on proposals or make decisions directly. The Steering Committee typically includes students and members of the school community (teachers, staff, and parents etc.), who are invited or appointed by the school.

The Technical Committee (TC) evaluates, approves, and helps develop project proposals based on ‘technical, economic, and legal criteria’, while supporting proposers to turn ideas into feasible projects (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 235). Made up of school staff, parents, and skilled volunteers, the TC aims to be inclusive and avoid excluding widely supported proposals from the co-design and evaluation process.

Student representatives play a key role in leading deliberation and acting as a link between students, staff, and school leaders in the PB process. They are selected from class and school leadership positions. Their role focuses on facilitation rather than taking over decisions, encouraging broader student involvement.

Participant Recruitment and Selection

Efforts were made to ensure that the selection of schools for the initiative was fair and balanced. This effort was made through the attempt to ensure that the schools which were picked were fairly territorially distributed throughout Italy (Stortone, 2025, IV). Mostly, state schools were involved in the programme. If the students involved in the initiative were typically less fortunate than the average Italian student, then it could be argued that the project had a slight redistributive aim, а̀ la Porto Alegre.

Methods and Tools Used

Through its method, the project aimed to encourage the students involved in the PB process to engage, participate, and deliberate. In certain ways, the process was inspired by the inaugural successful PB in Porto Alegre. ‘Some small pieces’ of the PB in schools initiative were ‘inspired’ by the Porto Alegre PB (Stortone, 2025, IV). The clear set of rules that was used in Porto Alegre (its constitution) inspired the PB in schools initiative to use a statute to ensure that students, staff, and organisational bodies knew where they stand. The existence of the statute, and the subsequent awareness of it was vital as it helps to ensure that students were not blind-sided by the twists and turns of the PB process, and subsequently remained engaged.

However it was not feasible or desirable for the initiative to implement other features of the Porto Alegre PB. The Porto Alegre PB was intensely ideological (e.g. Gadotti and Pereira, 1989). Using PB as an overtly left-wing tool in this way is not desirable in a school setting. Furthermore, the PB in Porto Alegre was inherently revolutionary, whereas this was not possible in the PB in schools initiative because there was ‘nothing to be revolutionary’ about (Stortone, 2025, IV). There was a desire to make the process more similar to that of Porto Alegre, but ultimately it was ‘unrealistic’ (Stortone, 2025, IV). Overall, the approach of the PB in schools initiative reflects the global pattern of PB becoming more ‘technically grounded and ideologically neutral’ (Stortone and Allegretti, 2018).

These broad decisions helped shape the specifics of the method. Throughout the eleven schools, there were minor modifications, but the process of all schools followed the same rough three-stage process, (idea collection, evaluation and co-design, and voting).

Idea Collection

In the idea collection phase, the whole school community contributes and discusses proposals, which are then filtered through a pre-vote of support. This process encourages students to consider broader community needs, with the most supported proposals setting the ‘agenda’ for the next phases (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 233). Stortone (2025) ‘wishes’ that only students were involved in this process (IV), but often this was not possible.

Evaluation and Co-design

In the second phase, top-ranked proposals are evaluated for feasibility using objective and technical criteria. Feasible proposals are then co-designed and improved through collaboration between the original proposers, technical experts, and the school community. This phase is ‘necessary’ (Stortone, 2025, IV) because there is a high probability that without it, the projects suggested would not be able to come to fruition.

Voting

Approval Voting was used in most schools. This is when students can vote for as many projects as they choose, and the winning project(s) are those with the most votes. The voting stages were conducted over a long time frame to encourage high levels of deliberation throughout the process. Depending on the facilities of the specific school and the time-frame in which it occurred this phase was done in both online and offline settings. It was thought that online participation would extend the ability for students to vote outside of school hours, guarantee transparency and provide opportunities for knowledge to be shared. Offline participation was thought of as more important, because it helps build relationships between participants and typically involves higher deliberative quality.

What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

Due to the incredibly varied nature of the different PB processes within the initiative, it was expected that the eleven schools involved would have equally varied outcomes. This section will not focus on the specific outcomes within each school, but instead will examine patterns of activity throughout the eleven schools.

Idea Collection

The whole school community gained the opportunity to foster ideas as to how to improve the nature of the school with at least €1,000 euros, with one school entrusting the process with a budget of €20,000 for improvements. Throughout this phase, teachers were generally ‘encouraged to listen’ to students, and largely found their input valuable (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 244).

Evaluation and Co-Design

The evaluation and co-design phase was the ‘most complex and challenging’ phase (Stortone and Biacca, p. 237). The TC struggled with limited time and inadequate preparation, leading some members to prematurely reject proposals rather than support their development. This caused ‘tiring’ negotiations to keep popular student proposals in the process. When popular projects were drastically changed or removed by the TC, there would often be a high degree of disillusionment with the PB process. Some students underestimated the effort needed during this phase, and did not understand how complex, and time-consuming the process of co-designing a feasible project is.

There was a small pattern of certain staff members acting in an ‘invasive’ way that undermined the second phase of the project (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 245). The ‘harshest example’ of this happened at the Filangieri school (Stortone, 2025, IV), where the ‘school principal’, who was not meant to be part of the TC, inserted herself into the process and demanded the removal of the most popular proposal. This project, a "relax zone" where students could socialise and rest between classes, had received the most support in the pre-vote round (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 238). Her actions weakened the integrity of the evaluation and co-design phase and likely discouraged student participation, leading to a significant drop in engagement during the final vote.

Voting Phase

Participation in the voting phase was remarkably varied. In the Cremona School PB, which occurred prior to Covid-19, the turnout in the final voting phase exceeded 90% (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 237). Conversely, at the Savoia-Benincasa school, turnout dropped to below 10% in the final phase. This sharp difference is likely due to Savoia-Benincasa being the school ‘most affected’ by Covid-19 (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 242), which forced the entire PB process to take place online. Overall, the shift to online participation during the pandemic appears to have had a detrimental impact on student engagement and involvement in the PB process (Stortone, 2025, IV).

Despite this, the projects which were voted on were successfully implemented at all of the schools whose PB process was influenced by Covid. The successful projects were very varied in the different schools. They included an internal courtyard, a recording studio, renovation of bathrooms, self-defence classes, and a new printer (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, pp. 237-241). Many of these projects are likely to have a tangibly positive effect on student experience. The major positive from the initiative though is the political experience which students gained, as experiencing the political process will likely have highly positive effects on political participation and political knowledge in the future (Kiess, 2022).

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

The PB in Italian schools initiative was intrinsically difficult. This was due to a plethora of factors. These include a lack of enthusiasm from schools, ‘invasive’ behaviour from members of staff, and Covid-19 (Stortone and Biacca, p. 245). These difficulties with the project resulted in all but one school electing not to resume the process after one PB cycle (Stortone, 2025, IV). Despite this, all PB processes resulted in tangible projects, which were democratically voted for by the ‘whole school community’(Stortone and Biacca, p. 233). The ‘mere fact’ that PB was successfully implemented in each school during the emergence of a global pandemic the PB should be perceived as a significant ‘success’ (p. 243).

Moreover, the project succeeded in providing students with an opportunity to take part in a democracy. However, the project struggled to engage many students, as there were regularly low levels of participation in the process, especially in the online editions of the innovation. Additionally, the initiative struggled to revolutionise the vertical power dynamic, with many of the schools not viewing it as ‘a change in the governance system’ (Stortone, 2025, IV). Overall the negative impact of the Covid pandemic hampered the advancement of this innovation. Once the project moved online, it failed to generate the same level of engagement or revolutionise the vertical power dynamic within schools as effectively as it had in person.

It should be added that this initiative has a potential, long-term transformative positive impact on civic engagement. This impact is almost impossible to quantify. Firstly, because not enough time has passed since the project. Secondly, because any uptick in student political engagement etc. will likely not be attributed to the PB in schools initiative, regardless of whether it has an effect. Although the specific impact is hard to quantify, Reichert and Print (2018) found that ‘participation in student governance’ has a significantly positive effect on future civic and political engagement (p. 333). Through providing a channel whereby students are encouraged and incentivised to participate in student governance, the Italian PB in schools initiative likely has increased the long-term civic and political engagement of the affected students. A key limitation of the initiative was that it was unable to spread significantly. PB was ultimately implemented in just eleven secondary schools in Italy. In contrast, there are approximately 7,000 secondary schools (Statista, 2019). This means that just 0.15% of students experienced the process. The small-scale nature of the project prevents it from having any significant impact on political engagement at the national level.

Analysis and Lessons Learned

To evaluate the extent to which the initiative promotes democracy, we use Smith’s (2009) framework, and examine the effect on the six democratic goods which Smith lays out: inclusiveness, considered judgement, popular control, transparency, efficiency, and transferability. The key benefit of using Smith’s framework to assess the extent to which PB in schools has been a successful initiative is that his criteria enable the analysis of the initiative to be both ‘normative’ and ‘empirical’ simultaneously (Beetham, 1999, p. 29; Smith, 2009, p. 194).

This section begins by evaluating the inclusiveness of the initiative. Then, it analyses the relationship between the democratic goods through assessing how two key elements of the design influenced the outcome of the initiative. These elements are firstly, the training of the facilitators and secondly, the existence of a statute and its subsequent utilisation. Then, it covers the outcomes of the project which are not directly connected to the statute or the training, and dedicates specific attention to external transparency and the overall efficiency of the project.

Inclusiveness

Inclusiveness encapsulates both the consideration of selection mechanisms such that certain demographics do not miss out on participation, and the ways in which ‘institutional design can affect fairness in making contributions’ (Smith, 2009, p. 21). The PB in schools initiative was characterised by a shift. The offline participation which preceded Covid-19 and the online participation which succeeded it. Generally, offline participation was much better for encouraging turnout and engagement in the discussion, and subsequently inclusiveness was higher. There is something intrinsically exciting about filling out a ‘ballot paper’ and voting rather than just using a google form. It is also much harder to engage with a ‘Youtube’ video rather than a person in front of you (Stortone, 2025, IV). As engagement was considerably higher during the offline sessions of PB, we can conclude that offline sessions are far better at fostering an inclusive environment in which school PB can occur.

Shifting participation online also carries a significant risk of altering who feels able or willing to take part, particularly among different demographic groups. Baek et al. (2012) argue that online deliberation tends to over-represent ‘white male’ participants, largely due to disparities in ‘internet access’ (p. 377). While Showers et al. (2015) support the claim that online participation negatively impacts non-white participants, they challenge Baek et al.'s finding regarding gender. Specifically, they find no ‘significant negative effects’ on women’s participation when deliberation occurs online (p. 10).

These findings suggest that the move to online participation during the Covid-19 pandemic may have inadvertently discouraged participation from non-white students in particular. However, addressing these demographic disparities may have been viewed as secondary to the core goals of the initiative: to educate students about PB and challenge hierarchical power dynamics in schools. Given the constraints of the pandemic, when participation overall was very limited, prioritising equal demographic representation may have been considered an inefficient use of scarce resources.

Often, inclusiveness in ‘public deliberation’ is low because it is the ‘norm’ that a ‘few individuals dominate discussion’, and do not enable the rest to participate sufficiently (Bonito and Hollingshead, 1997, pp. 227-261; Hansen and Andersen, 2004). This is because this prevents the majority of participants in the PB from feeling comfortable sharing their perspectives or their proposed projects in a group setting. A key safeguard implemented by the PB in schools initiative to prevent this was to provide training for all facilitators in every SC. However, providing sufficient and efficient training to the SC sometimes proved challenging as ‘students’ in particular would often struggle to ‘engage’ with information-centric training (Stortone, 2025, IV). In these instances, there is a significant risk that the SC did not have the necessary knowledge of the PB process to facilitate discussion such that everybody felt comfortable participating, hence potentially damaging the inclusiveness of the initiative.

Training of the Facilitators

When facilitators lack sufficient training, it can also undermine the popular control of the initiative. Popular control, in this context, refers to the extent to which the whole school community (especially students) are able to have ‘agenda-setting power’ and control the process (Smith, 2009, p. 23). When facilitators in the SC are insufficiently trained it becomes increasingly possible that they may act improperly. Facilitators hold a ‘coercive power’ to intervene in discussions (Spada and Vreeland, 2013, p. 15). There is a strong risk that facilitators may use this power and ‘(unintentionally) bias discussions’ toward their preferred outcome (p. 16). This potential for facilitators to have influence is especially relevant in School PB as students are ‘more prone’ to agree with the opinion of teachers than fellow students (Stortone, 2025, IV). Therefore, the neutrality of the facilitators, especially when they are members of staff, is of paramount importance. If the facilitator of the discussion is able to shape which ideas are taken seriously and undermine proposals, this reduces the control which the students have over the process.

As well as damaging popular control, facilitators steering discussions toward their preferred outcomes can also harm considered judgement, but to a lesser extent. Considered judgement refers to the democratic good of ensuring that preferences and decisions are shaped by informed, reflective discussion (Smith, 2009, p. 24). A component of this is the process being free from coercion and distortion. Therefore, if facilitators, due to a lack of training or professionalism, bias discussions toward their preferred outcome, then, there is a high propensity for the deliberation to be skewed. This limits the students’ ability to weigh the merits of proposals in an open and informed manner, potentially damaging the deliberative quality of discussion, and the considered judgement of the initiative.

However, beyond the training, measures were taken by the initiative to attempt to limit the extent to which facilitators can act in this manner. Firstly, the SC (the body responsible for facilitating the discussions) is made up of multiple people with differing interests, as it ‘includes staff, students, and parents’ (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 235). Through the employing of multiple facilitators from multiple different backgrounds, the unconscious biases from the facilitators are likely to ‘balance’, reducing the extent to which facilitator influence is an issue (Spada and Vreeland, 2013, p. 17; Chong and Druckman, 2013). Reducing the direct influence of any given facilitator provides students with more ability to control the process, and hence aids the popular control of the initiative.

Furthermore, the PB in schools initiative makes a concerted effort to ensure that the SC is sufficiently trained, and recognises the importance of professional, and unbiased participation. For example, ahead of the RIPARTIRE project, they had to ‘reinvent’ the entire training programme to adjust for the effects of Covid-19, and then consequently execute a training programme which lasted ‘four months’, in the bid to ensure that the facilitators would understand PB and facilitate accordingly (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 241). In all PB processes which were implemented, there was an effort to train the SC. In contrast, the TC (the body responsible for evaluating and co-designing projects) regularly had zero training. This represents that the initiative viewed the quality of facilitation as highly important, and therefore were likely able to ensure that the facilitators behaved appropriately, such that the popular control nor the considered judgement of the initiative was significantly negatively influenced by its facilitation.

Extensive, long-form training offers clear advantages, such as ensuring that the facilitators understand the intricacies of the PB process and are able to recognise and mitigate their own unconscious biases during deliberation. However, the effectiveness of any training ultimately depends on its ability to engage participants and convey key concepts clearly. A large range of training regimes were tried, from a singular two-hour game of Empaville, to more comprehensive regimes which lasted six months (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, pp. 237-239). As the training was very varied, it follows that it had varied outcomes. In many cases, they found that less is more. Over the course of the training, they found that the most effective training was through the use of the game ‘Empaville’ (Stortone, 2025, IV). This is because the Empaville training gamified the process. This had the effect of making PB easier to understand, more fun, and engaging. This decision made the training more inclusive as it simplified the process, and it also vastly improved ‘cognitive, learning, and behavioural’ outcomes during the training (Sailer and Homner, 2020, p. 106). Overall, despite the Empaville training not equipping the SC with vast quantities of information (which in many ways were necessary), it was ultimately the ‘most effective’, and enhanced the efficiency of the initiative (Stortone, 2025, IV).

The Importance of the Statute

It was deemed essential that each PB process had a statute. This is because its existence, and the subsequent awareness of it, has the capacity to improve all six democratic goods of the process: inclusiveness, considered judgement, popular control, transparency, efficiency, and transferability. They attempted to increase awareness of the statute through disseminating the information contained through trained student representatives, who would in turn spread the word to fellow students. This attempt was largely unsuccessful, as almost ‘nobody’ read the statute before engaging in the PB process (Stortone, 2025, IV). However, despite low levels of student engagement with the statute, it still retains legitimacy. It is explained that it is not required for students to ‘read the statutes to feel that some mechanism is broken’ (Stortone, 2025, IV), implying that the statute can still influence participants through the structure of the process itself. Additionally, its legal existence and public availability can enhance the credibility of the process.

The statute improves the internal transparency of the initiative through providing a clear, and referable document which clearly displays ‘agreed rules’ which help ‘legitimise the process’ (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 234). The process of PB is intrinsically emotive and a source of ‘empowerment’ (Ghergina et al, 2022, pp. 574-576). The statute functions as a protective and stabilising mechanism, offering clear rules and expectations that prevent students from feeling lost or disillusioned when the process inevitably becomes ‘demanding’ (Stortone, 2025, IV). This suggests that the process having high levels of transparency (via the clear nature of the statute) can also ensure that it retains participation throughout and is inclusive in that sense.

Moreover, the benefits of the statute extend beyond just transparency and inclusiveness. Through providing guidance for those in the ‘educational hierarchy with power’ to ‘stick to the rules’ and avoid being ‘invasive’ (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 234), the statute sets a standard through which high quality deliberative discussion can occur. This promotes considered judgement as it enables students to recognise and engage with perspectives ‘quite different’ to their own (Smith, 2009, p. 24). The statute also increases popular control, as it formally defines how students can set the ‘agenda’, propose projects, and participate in decision-making (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 233). It guarantees that students are not just passive participants but have structured opportunities to influence outcomes. This ensures the students have meaningful control over budgeting decisions, which is a crucial precondition of the whole initiative reaching its goals. Despite the statute having a beneficial effect on popular control, overall, ‘staff’ had significantly more influence over the process than students (Stortone, 2025, IV), indicating that popular control in this initiative is relatively low compared to other PB initiatives.

In addition the statute also increases efficiency, which is a measure of whether the ‘benefits’ of the PB outweigh the ‘costs’ (Smith, 2009, p. 64). As the statute is agreed upon and interpretable, it has the capacity to prevent ‘long and tiring’ negotiations between students and the TC during the second phase. This is because it can determine under which conditions the TC is allowed to intervene in the process. Furthermore, the existence of a successful statute enhances the transferability of the process, as it provides a clear and proven framework that can be adopted by other schools. When one statute supports an effective PB process, it can be easily replicated or adapted elsewhere, allowing the model to spread across different educational contexts.

On top of this, the Covid pandemic highlights how the statute positively influences the transferability of the PB by demonstrating how a clear and codified framework can adapt across contexts, even under crisis conditions. However, Covid still provided a unique circumstance that required the PB process within Italian schools to be adapted. For example, the training approach had to be reinvented, with a learning-by-doing course on civic education and democracy being developed by BiPart (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 240). Moreover, it was challenging to ‘scale up that protocol because almost all the activities had to be carried out remotely’ (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 232). Despite these obstacles, the initiative demonstrated its adaptability: ‘all winning projects’ were successfully ‘implemented within just over a year of the final vote’ (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 243; Smith, 2009, p.27). This ability to operate effectively under crisis conditions highlights the robustness of the model and reinforces its potential for transferability to other contexts, even in the face of major disruptions.

External Transparency

A key issue facing PB in Italy is its limited public visibility, as it remains largely unknown and is described as 'totally absent' from the national programmes of major political parties (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 231). Therefore, the PB in schools initiative aims to 'raise awareness' of how PB functions and why it matters (Stortone, 2025, IV). By involving students from eleven different schools, the initiative not only educates participants but also serves as a vehicle for broader dissemination of the PB model. This contributes to the project's external transparency, which is often referred to as 'publicity' (Smith, 2009, p. 25). The initiative gained exposure when the ‘intense’ nature of the Filangieri PB was ‘covered’ in a ‘major Italian newspaper’ (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 242). As PB is associated with more 'efficient, transparent, and accountable' governance (Marquetti et al., 2012, p. 80), the initiative’s public-facing dimension helps increase its external transparency and helps normalises PB in Italy’s broader democratic landscape, potentially encouraging its uptake in other settings.

Overall Efficiency

Overall, Stortone (2025, IV) suggested that PB in schools, whilst successful in implementing all of the winning proposals, was ‘not very effective’ and given that only one school continued on with PB, the process of implementing the project was likely ‘too demanding’. Moreover, with Covid forcing much of this process to take place online, it became more difficult to engage the students, disrupting young people’s political engagement and civic education, causing the initiative to become more inefficient. The decision for most schools to not continue with PB once the initiative was complete suggests that it was a ‘burden’ for the schools to implement (Smith, 2009, p. 26) with the whole process being seen as more of a luxury that ‘was not essential’ (Stortone, 2025, IV). That said, Stortone (2025, IV) acknowledges that for PB to be very impactful it will have to be ‘demanding’ and will be a ‘political issue’. Ultimately, despite difficulties, the initiative built new relationships between teachers and students and encouraged more engagement with students' issues and emphasised the value of making decisions collaboratively to achieve a common objective (Stortone and Biacca, 2024, p. 244).

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