Editorial. Pedagogy as a science between theory and empiricism

Although experimentation undergirds inquiry across the human, social, and natural sciences, the Italian pedagogical tradition preserves a sharp boundary between pedagogia generale ‒ a predominantly theoretical enterprise ‒ and pedagogia sperimentale, its empirically oriented counterpart. The origins of this bifurcation are chiefly epistemological. Historically, pedagogy emerged as an ancillary branch of philosophy and was therefore framed by speculative reflection on the cardinal coordinates of existence ‒ society, ethics, politics, kinship, life, and eschatology. Within that philosophically saturated matrix, education was relegated to a transmissive, élite-oriented didactic practice; it was treated as content to be handed down, not as a domain susceptible to systematic experimentation.