Democracy in education seen through the lens of dictatorship

Abstract

In the 1930s, the well-known Norwegian-Italian filmmaker Ivo Caprino attended the Stabekk Gymnasium, at which Olav Storstein was among his teachers. Before his student became internationally famous, Olav Storstein described in his book Fremtiden sitter på skolebenken an episode in which they were both protagonists. The socialist teacher and the young student of Italian origin provide an opportunity to show two opposing educational models: democratic education and fascist authoritarianism. Through a process of inductive analysis that starts from the cited text and crosses archives and reference literature, this essay will highlight the contrast between these two models using for illustrative purposes the biographical episode that allows us to make a historical educational analysis in a comparative perspective, but also to place the episode in a broader context and relate it to relevant aspects of the period. In this story, the interests of fascist propaganda abroad and in Italy, the fascist and socialist educational models, the activities of the Dante Alighieri society, and the private and professional lives of the two protagonists are intertwined.

Keywords

• Nordic education model
• fascist education
• Ivo Caprino
• democratic education