L'infanzia nell'Italia fascista

This paper continues established historiographical research on educational issues during the Fascist era. Scholars who have taken an interest in this theme – G. Ricuperati, M. Ostenc, J. Charnitzky and M. Galfré, to name a few – as well as contemporary historians who have explored Fascism in more general terms, have all underlined the importance that the movement founded by Mussolini assigned to the education of youth. According to Fascism total mobilisation, implemented during the war as a provisional and exceptional policy and through which childhood went from an exclusion to an inclusion in civil life, was meant to represent an integral part of the everyday life of youth. Young generations were thus elevated to political subjects to whom it was necessary to pay the utmost attention in order to regenerate the Nation and form the New Man.\r\nThe educational agencies that the National Fascist Party engaged for this project were mainly – though not exclusively – two: schools and youth organisations. These supported families in the attempt to impart a moral and political education that was consistent with the principles of the new system of political beliefs. In this paper I intend to illustrate the ideals that were pursued and the strategies that were implemented by Fascism to train girls and boys, young women and young men to whom the future and destiny of the new Italy were entrusted, on the one hand underlining elements of modernisation and of a break with the past, and on the other shedding light on elements of continuity.