This chapter contextualises the contributions to this volume in an interpretive framework based in the Italian and English language scholarship on Gramsci and education. This framework is of particular importance for English language readers who may not be familiar with the extended and extensive literature on Gramsci and education in the Italian scholarship. The chapter traces the development of Gramsci’s ideas about the nexus between pedagogy and politics from the years of L’Ordine Nuovo to the more mature formulation of the Prison Notebooks and assesses them in the light of some key voices in the historiography. The broader aim of this chapter is to expand the discussion of Gramsci and education to include formal, nonformal and informal forms and contexts of education.

Gramsci, Politics and Pedagogy: An Interpretative Framework

This paper traces the considerations of Gramsci about the New Education Movement. We have analyzed the relationships between the Educational Activism and the Gramsci’s work. In particular we evaluated similarities and differences with the Pragmatism of Dewey, with the Educational Spontaneism, inspired by the tradition of Rousseau, and with the Italian Neo-idealist Pedagogy represented by the figure of Lombardo Radice. In conclusion, in the history of the italian school after the Second World War, we examined the mean- ing of the position of Gramsci and Educational Activism.

Daniele Martinez

Papers

Gramsci e il movimento per l’educazione nuova. Alcuni spunti di riflessione