L’infanzia abbandonata nel Novecento: tra istanze di controllo e tutele educative

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the Italian context of services aimed at protecting minors without parents or with family problems, the twentieth century represented a period of important changes compared to the past. In the second part of the century, in fact, the consolidated practice of sheltering children and young people in large residential structures - the institutes - was definitively interrupted, because it was considered to be detrimental to the dignity of the person and detrimental to his education. The path that led to this awareness, reconstructed in its salient features along the essay, was neither speedy nor devoid of uncertainties, in Italy as in the rest of Europe.