Master of Arts in Teaching Department
Division of Social Sciences
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Dr. Andrea Marcelli is an Associate Professor in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program at the American University of Central Asia. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Social Sciences and Humanities with a focus on education from Università degli Studi Niccolò Cusano (2022, Italy), a teaching certification from the same university (2017–2018, Italy), a second-level Master’s diploma in Interdisciplinary Humanities from IUSS – Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (2011, Italy), a specialized Master’s degree in Foucault Studies (2011) and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Education, and Social Sciences from Università degli Studi di Pavia (2008, Italy).
Dr. Andrea Marcelli joined AUCA in June 2024 (full-time from August 2024) and teaches six courses. His core research focuses on the intersection between informal education, cultural heritage, and geographically challenged areas. Such investigation is undertaken under the umbrella of ecopedagogy, including educational ecosystem analysis aimed at the assessment of the social sustainability of educational processes. Accordingly, this involves researching education as a social phenomenon that acts at the community level rather than solely focusing on individual learning and achievement. Interests in the connections between cultural heritage and education extend to both historical and intercultural studies, including research on the educational ontologies presupposed by modern and premodern institutions, oral histories, or migrant experiences. Among Dr. Marcelli’s projects: Ecopedagogy of cultural heritage in the European Outermost Region of the Azores; the Case study “Italy” on the educational ecosystem underlying entrepreneurship education in VET; Historical research on the institutionalization of abandoned children in modern Europe.
Dr. Marcelli began lecturing in Philosophy and Critical Thinking at the late Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of La Trobe University (2013–2014, Australia). He later took up the role of Philosophy, Social Sciences, and EFL teacher at different Italian secondary schools (2017–2018). In the same period, he consulted as a curriculum developer and teacher trainer for Gentium Schola Opitergium (Italy), achieving compliance between the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and the Italian national curriculum. Beginning in late 2018, Dr. Marcelli became an Adjunct Lecturer at Università Niccolò Cusano, facilitating Educational Anthropology, Epistemology of Education, Educational Research, and Social Pedagogy to pre-service and in-service secondary school teachers, educators, and social workers. He later rose to the position of Research Fellow (2022). Concurrently with lecturing, Dr. Marcelli acted as quality assurance officer for the Master of Education at the same university.
In terms of international mobility, Dr. Marcelli collaborated with different European and extra-European universities, both as a recipient of the Erasmus+ grants and in a personal capacity. Visiting lectureships include the University of Tampere (2019, Finland), University of Azores (2020 and 2023, Portugal), Libertas University (2022, Croatia), University of Pristina (2023, Kosovo), and University of Ferrara (2024, Italy).
Dr. Marcelli is also active in the scientific publication industry. As of 2024, he is a scientific editorial consultant of Pensa MultiMedia and regularly audits up to 11 journals of education for compliance with quality requirements and indexing standards. For the same publisher, he works as executive editor of Formazione & insegnamento: European Journal of Research on Education and Training (2279-7505)—ranked “A” by the Italian national academic index and widely indexed internationally. Dr. Marcelli is a member of the scientific boards of the following book series: Formazione (1970-8408), La Società Formativa (2284-3000), Non Solo Scuola (2284-287X), Patrimoni Culturali e Ricerca Educativa (2421-1192). Such commitments are complemented by services to the profession performed for Scopus-ranked journals of education. Dr. Marcelli worked for the European Commission to evaluate HORIZON applications of his area of expertise.
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