The Reform Proposals of the Lower Secondary School in Italy and the Unified Perspective. 1861–1962

The debate on the reform of lower secondary school, or rather, of the school for pupils aged between 11 and 14, has been shared by most European countries since at least the beginning of the 20th century. One of the transversal themes in these debates has been whether or not to create a unitary school channel that could delay pupils’ choice of study path rather than forcing them into early decisions through a multi-stranded post-primary school system. A debate developed in the context of the progression towards mass education and went hand in hand with the heated confrontation between defenders of humanistic culture and supporters of technical-scientific education. However, most European countries, with a few exceptions (Visalberghi, 1964), did not actually reform the schooling of pre-teens until the second half of the 20th century. Italy, too, in fact only changed its school system in 1962, creating a unitary three-year post-elementary system.