Il libro della seconda classe (1930, 1933, and 1938): The Use of Reading Textbooks in Shaping Fascist School Culture in Italy

Abstract

Italian fascism used education as a political tool to consolidate values such as discipline and loyalty to the regime. In doing so, a school culture aligned with the principles of the fascist state was structured through a series of educational transformations, such as the Single Textbook policy (1929). This paper presents part of an ongoing master’s research project whose aim is to analyze the textbooks of Fascist Italy and their representations as they promoted an official vision of the regime, reflecting governmental strategies to consolidate a narrative that valorized fascism. Accordingly, three reading books for the second year of primary school, titled Il libro della seconda classe and published in 1930, 1933, and 1938, were analyzed. As a theoretical-methodological framework, we use Chartier’s (1991, 1998) concept of representation to understand the role of textbooks in incorporating fascism into social relations and everyday school life. The studies of Bittencourt (1993) and Choppin (2004) were fundamental for analyzing reading books as instruments of political, cultural, and social construction in Italian fascism. These authors help us to understand the ways in which education was used as a project for shaping the “new Italian”.