Università Roma Tre

The course aims to provide students with an organic and in-depth view of the historical evolution of pedagogical theories from ancient times to contemporary times. Particular attention will be devoted to the analysis of the main thematic cores of the social history of education-such as educational institutions, processes and customs-as well as the fundamental conceptual paradigms that have characterized Western pedagogical reflection over the centuries. The study will be articulated through an examination of the educational thought and action of leading educational theorists and pedagogues.
Specific focus will be given to modern and contemporary pedagogical thought, with particular reference to the educational revolutions that, since the 19th century, have brought about a profound renewal of the role of the school and its educational function. These transformations have promoted an evolution of educational practices, orienting them toward a greater centrality of the individual and his or her active involvement in teaching-learning processes.
Finally, the last part of the course will be reserved for an in-depth study of some of the most relevant figures among the Italian pedagogues of the 20th century who innovated the discipline and still inspire today even on the threshold of epochal changes due to the emergence of artificial intelligences.

S. Santamaita, Storia dell'educazione e delle pedagogie, Seconda Edizione, Pearsons, Milano, 2018
S. di Biasio, L. Silvestri (a cura di), Maestre e maestri della ricostruzione. Una nuova scuola nell'Italia tra dopoguerra e boom economico, Mondadori Education, Milano, 2024
I. Illich, Descolarizzare la società, Mimesis, Milano, 2019.

The course will consist of a laboratory part in which some central ideas for the history of education in relation to the history of childhood will be preliminarily investigated: identity of the discipline, different ideas compared on the birth of the "feeling of childhood."
Next, "different childhoods" (bourgeois, peasant, blue-collar, abandoned) in the modern and contemporary ages will be analyzed through a reading by interpretive "prisms" also offered by the most up-to-date literature on the subject.

F. Borruso, Memoria, Infanzia, educazione. Modelli educativi e vita quotidiana fra Otto e Novecento, Roma Tre Press, 2021 (open access).