Prerequisites for admission.

Admission to the degree programme is subject to the possession of a secondary high-school diploma or other suitable qualification obtained abroad and deemed suitable.
A sound basic knowledge in humanities is required to access this programme.
Students will have to take an entrance exam to verify their personal skills, through methods laid down in the degree programme teaching regulation. An entry test with questions on history and humanities will be provided. Additional learning requirements may be set for students who do not score a sufficient number of correct answers.
During the academic year, the learning requirements will be assessed on the relevant students by the professors in charge, with set deadlines and procedures duly notified to the students.

Skills associated with the function

Historical and philosophical profile
Basic skills for the analysis of concepts, ideas, historical and social contexts, cultural and linguistic expressions, and new boarders of digital humanities. Critical focus of topics and problems affecting activities in cultural and intercultural working contexts. Ability to create study objects, draw up work projects and plans, texts, minutes, policy documents.
These levels of skills may be strengthened through internships and other vocational activities


Social and anthropological profile
Basic skills for the analysis of concepts, ideas, communication, social and anthropological contexts, cultural expressions and gender relations, and their implications even in terms of language. Critical focus of topics and problems affecting activities in cultural and intercultural working contexts. Language and intercultural mediation skills, and ability to draw up work projects and plans, texts, minutes, policy documents.
These levels of skills may be strengthened through internships and other vocational activities.

Function in a work context

Historical and philosophical profile
Ideation, programming, coordination and supervision of cultural activities (see “job opportunities”). The acquisition of pedagogical and teaching methodologies is preparatory to the teaching in the historical and philosophical field in upper and lower secondary schools.

Social and anthropological profile
Ideation, programming, coordination and supervision of intercultural mediation activities (see “job opportunities”). The acquisition of pedagogical and teaching methodologies is preparatory to the teaching in upper and lower secondary schools.

Educational goals

Taken in its disciplinary forms, the teaching method focuses on the following questions: what is contemporaneity and what makes the time in which we live modern? What are the main ideas and concepts on which contemporary society has built? To what extent the crisis of some paradigms on which modernity has built (progress, development, secularisation) marks or points to the switch to post-modernity? How did identities and inequalities structure? What is culture, what are cultures and how do they interact among them? In which way does culture (overall intended therefore as personal rethinking and summary of the inputs provided by the various disciplinary approaches) turn out to be an indispensable tool to find your way, choose and make individual and collective plans in the globalised world in front of us in which we live?
The degree programme thus provides both general humanistic training but also, where possible, interdisciplinary skills. To this purpose, also by offering students the opportunity to choose their credits, it promotes the relation with different disciplinary fields and - through several memoranda of understanding activated by the Department of language and cultural studies - encourages the acquisition of specific skills in cultural institutions and local bodies.
In this perspective, even promoting real experiences through internships and structured activities, the professional skills acquired in the degree programme - even using the mentioned agreements - must not be seen as a specialisation applied to specific fields, but rather the possession of basic knowledge and sufficiently solid and flexible tools that can be adapted to work with specific problems, of tools and skills allowing students to independently and critically intervene in specific situations.
Focusing on historical subjects, the training programme aims to provide a wide shared base during the first two years (in the anthropological, philosophical and sociological field) which is essential in relation to the stated objectives. On the third year, students must choose between two programmes: the first one is of a philosophical nature, and beside offering the opportunity to continue the studies with several master degree programmes, also allows students to gain the credits required for the competition classes in the humanities and historical and philosophical fields; the second one, still useful for the preparation to the master degree programme, focuses more on the professional needs, with specific reference to cultural mediation. Ultimately, the study programme allows students to gain university credits (CFUs) in the anthropological, psychological and didactic field, in order to access the competition classes for teaching.

Communication skills

Students must learn to present ideas, results, problems and clearly, rigorously and comprehensibly reason their findings according to the audience; they must also be able to tackle and present topics in a flexible manner, according to the times and spaces available. More specifically, they shall acquire the following abilities and competences:
interpersonal and role-playing communication in written and oral form, also in multidisciplinary and multicultural contexts; the pragmatic use of language in mediated communication and interaction.
Those expected results will be gained through traditional lectures and dedicated seminars.
The assessment methods are:
1) in the classroom, evaluating their ability to analyse written and oral communication situations;
2) in oral and written exams, questions to verify not only the knowledge acquired but also receptive and productive communication skills.

Making Judgements

The close connection between historical and philosophical subjects and the study of investigation methodologies applied to various social sciences are the basis of this degree programme, aiming principally to train students to find their way among the many cultured of modern and contemporary society. This also implies the acquisition of comparison and recognition skills, in alternative to a standardised framework and the mere reduction of cultures to simple ethnographic materials. The set of skills demands that the students be able to make judgements and organise and re-process the contents transmitted personally and critically, based on the interdisciplinary teaching methods and tools offered in the core course units of the first two years and the different curricula offered in the third year.

The above outcomes are verified in written and oral exams, and the discussion of reports produced.

Learning skills

At the end of the 1st cycle degree in Contemporary History and Cultures, students shall prove to have gained the specific abilities they need to continue their studies with a high degree of autonomy. In particular, at the end of the first cycle students should demonstrate the following skills:
the ability to learn, control and verify information, ideas, problems and solutions in specific and multidisciplinary areas;
the ability to retrieve and apply the knowledge learned;
the ability to develop critical awareness above all of the recent conceptual and methodological advances in the studied subjects.

The above outcomes are verified in written and oral exams, and the discussion of reports produced.