From the time of the Unification period, the ones responsible of the public politics for the development of public education through specific normative and regulamentar measures have instituted the practice of awards honouring conferred by the public authority with the title of «Benemerito della Pubblica Istruzione». This process has involved, from the beginning, municipal institutions, associations, and above all, primary school teachers. Subsequently, also professional categories of inspectors, didactical authorities were honoured by public decorations. This special honour institution, which granted certificates of merit and medals, with the time being had a significant evolution. The paper aims to demonstrate and calls the attention to the decoration as a public policy of the memory, a functional way of incentivising even the development of the primary school processes and to promote the professionalization of the teacher’s body. Through these awards and celebrations, truly memory places, it is possible to verify the different models of teachers that the diverse political classes intended to spread, adequate to foment the development of the primary education in a laic and gratuity, an ethic-civil reference to the local communities, capable of taking charge in a string mission, characterized as a civil religion and ready for any sacrifices. The paper inspires for the suggestions that the research in the field of History of Education has produced during the last years, in relation with the ways of remembering how representation forms the school and the teachers’ body adopted to make it public. It is based on the analyses of the unpublished documentation filed kept in the Italian State Central Archive, integrated by the printed documentation through commemorative booklets or the official bulletin from the Ministry of Public Education.

«Ricambiare l'amore che portano all'educazione...». Public memory and awards of honour of public education in Italy from the Unification to the end of the 19th Century (1861-1898)

Alberto Barausse
2019-01-01

Abstract

From the time of the Unification period, the ones responsible of the public politics for the development of public education through specific normative and regulamentar measures have instituted the practice of awards honouring conferred by the public authority with the title of «Benemerito della Pubblica Istruzione». This process has involved, from the beginning, municipal institutions, associations, and above all, primary school teachers. Subsequently, also professional categories of inspectors, didactical authorities were honoured by public decorations. This special honour institution, which granted certificates of merit and medals, with the time being had a significant evolution. The paper aims to demonstrate and calls the attention to the decoration as a public policy of the memory, a functional way of incentivising even the development of the primary school processes and to promote the professionalization of the teacher’s body. Through these awards and celebrations, truly memory places, it is possible to verify the different models of teachers that the diverse political classes intended to spread, adequate to foment the development of the primary education in a laic and gratuity, an ethic-civil reference to the local communities, capable of taking charge in a string mission, characterized as a civil religion and ready for any sacrifices. The paper inspires for the suggestions that the research in the field of History of Education has produced during the last years, in relation with the ways of remembering how representation forms the school and the teachers’ body adopted to make it public. It is based on the analyses of the unpublished documentation filed kept in the Italian State Central Archive, integrated by the printed documentation through commemorative booklets or the official bulletin from the Ministry of Public Education.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11695/87839
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