Professional Recognition of Educational Professions in Italy: The Effects of Law 205/2017 (paras. 594-601) and Law 55/2024 on the Labour Market

This thesis investigates the process of professionalisation of educational professions in Italy, analysing the impact of recent legislative measures, specifically Law No. 205/2017 (paras. 594-601) and Law No. 55/2024. Although these provisions have marked a crucial step towards institutional legitimacy, they have not yet produced a structural and uniform improvement in working conditions. More broadly, while the professionalisation process appears to be underway and clearly identifiable, it remains far from complete. By combining normative analysis with descriptive statistics on occupa-tional and contractual data, the study highlights a strong tension between the existing regulatory framework, and a work reality characterised by structural precariousness and limited economic recog-nition. This gap between norm and reality constitutes one of the most significant findings of the re-search. The research adopts a post-positivist epistemological paradigm, supported by a theoretical-interpretative framework and integrated with sociological debates on the professions and contempo-rary pedagogical perspectives. The results indicate that these reforms have not yet led to the expected structural improvement but rather represent the beginning of a long-term process.