Università Roma Tre

The course focuses on the relationship between the pedagogical culture and the social, cultural and political transformations during the twentieth century. It also focuses on the problems and specific challenges of the current complex society, characterized by the plurality of pedagogical and cultural approaches and by the deep transformations that have involved both the labour market and educational institutions. Through the main authors of the twentieth century will be analysed the transition to scientific pedagogy and the relationship with the educational sciences. Particular attention will be dedicated to the contribution of J. Dewey, B. Bettelheim e don Roberto Sardelli. Part of the program focuses on early childhood and applications to educational settings for children

1. CAMBI F., Le pedagogie del Novecento, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2019
2. BONDIOLI A., SAVIO D., Educare l’infanzia. Temi chiave per i servizi 0-6 anni, Carocci, Roma 2018
3. FIORUCCI M., SARDELLI R., Dalla parte degli ultimi. La pedagogia "popolare" della Scuola 725 (1968-1973), Donzelli, Roma 2020

4. BETTELHEIM B., Un genitore quasi perfetto, Feltrinelli, Milano

The text by Bruno Bettelheim, an Austrian psychoanalyst who has come back from the experience of the Nazi concentration camps, is the result of a long study experience and is a reflection on the value and meaning of affective dynamics in human growth. Emotional-affective maturation (this is one of the central themes) is a difficult, complex path towards the identity and authenticity of the self. A crucial element of all this are the profound identifications by which the child welcomes in the internal world behaviors, ways of feeling and thinking of parents, the family world, the social environment. According to Bettelheim, one becomes a person precisely for the quality of these relationships, for the strength of the presence of the other, for the stability of personal contact, which is established between adult and child. If we think for a moment about the problem of exercising authority, self-control and self-discipline, we discover that what has weight and meaning in learning to live the common rules is not orders and even less threats and punishments. What matters is a coherent system of values, that set made up of emotional communication and inner firmness that creates the conditions for introjecting stability and self-control. We must add that for Bettelheim identification processes have this protective quality if the nature of the parent-child relationship is less and less what seems to have become in the industrial and post-industrial societies of our time, dominated by emotional separation, the solitude of young and adults, by mass conformism. In the book, therefore, we do not find a set of pedagogical advice to provide to educators in difficulty (even if there are obviously no lack of regulatory principles and models of conduct) but above all the indication of an inner attitude: the need to achieve self-awareness in order to get there to the knowledge of the other. In short, the fantasies, the feelings of a child, Bettelheim tells us, can easily find the wall of our defenses, but if we can get down in our emotions by listening to ourselves to some extent, if we feel a deeper contact and understanding with our past experiences, we can use all this to reduce defenses and create a wider mental space that allows the other to live and grow. In other words, the relationship with a child should be able to increase our personal insight and translate into awareness of the ambivalences and conflicts that go through the human condition.

B. Bettelheim, Un genitore quasi perfetto, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2017.

The course aims to initiate students to the study of themes and problems of general Pedagogy, with particular attention to the pedagogical and educational reflection that emerged during the twentieth century. Some significant constructs of the pedagogical discourse will be examined in depth, in comparison with the Socratic lesson: education and paideia, ethics and moral action, practice of care and self-care, communication and dialogic relationship.
Part of the program is dedicated to early childhood and applications to educational settings for children.

Platone, Apologia di Socrate, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2005 (recommended edition);
A. Broccoli, Educazione senza morale? Risorse e limiti dell'etica pedagogica, La Scuola, Brescia 2017;
M. Amadini, Crescere partecipando. Contesti e prospettive educative per il sistema integrato 0-6, Scholé-Morcelliana, Brescia 2020.


Those wishing to take the exam with a different program than the standard one, are requested to agree with the teacher, at least 30 days before the date of appeal.