Dewey and Italian School Policy: Proposals for Reform by Scuola e Città (1950–1960)

Abstract

The paper analyses the role of Ernesto Codignola’s «Florence School of Pedagogy» in the renewal of Italian democratic and secular education after World War II, particularly its commitment to the diffusion of John Dewey’s educational thinking across Italy, previously dominated by the influence of traditional neo-idealism. Through a systematic analysis of the journal Scuola e Città, the group’s mouthpiece, the paper highlights the importance of Dewey’s ideas in the elaboration of educational policy proposals and potential legislative measures for school reform. It analyses the extent to which the «Deweyan laboratory» in Florence contributed to the emergence and foundation of the positions held by one of its exponents, Ernesto Codignola’s son Tristano – the Italian Socialist Party’s Education minister, in the parliamentary debate of the Sixties. The paper focuses on three main themes: (i) assessment of the government’s primary school curricula, drawn up in the mid-fifties, characterized by an overhaul of the existing educational practices, which Scuola e città authors considered to be insufficient and contradictory; (ii) universal access to a junior secondary education along the lines of the comprehensive school model to guide the active stimulation of students’ abilities and interests; and (iii) school administration reform in response to the persistence of pre-war centralism and the authoritarian character of traditional Italian pedagogy.

Keywords

• John Dewey (1859-1952)
• Ernesto Codignola (1885-1965)
• Italia repubblicana
• politica scolastica
• Scuola e città
• attivismo pedagogico