L'ascolto dei bambini durante una situazione di emergenza. Una esperienza di educazione alla democrazia

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has distorted the lives of everyone, es-pecially those of children who were deprived, during the first lockdown, of school, social relations and the possibility of expressing their needs and provid-ing their opinion about the situation they were experiencing. The international project City of children of the Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technolo-gies of the CNR in Rome, for many years, has been promoting child participa-tion in the government and management of the city, as a fundamental experi-ence of education to democracy and to citizenship. The research presented in this contribution was born with the dual objective of giving a voice to children, analyzing their emotional state linked to this situation, collecting their ideas, thoughts and proposals, and to understand if and in what way the mayors of the Italian cities involved them during the initial period of the health emergency.