“Una impronta di italianitá”: the didactic books for Italian ethnic schools in Brazil between liberalism and fascism

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the development of the textbooks’ policy defined by Italian ruling class for the schools into abroad between the second half of XIX Century and the decade of thirties of XX Century. The article offers a contribute to the reconstruction of the complex dynamics, which characterized the development of schooling, the cultural and educational processes in the formation of the identity of the Italian settles during the same period in Brazil. From Unification, the textbooks were a fundamental tool of the Italian ruling elite that introduced and promoted a centralized control to support efforts of nationalization, modernization and homogenization of teaching in the schools as in the national as into abroad context. Over the years, production and circulation of textbooks increased. After the beginning of new colonial and new emigration policies by Prime Minister Francesco Crispi, in the 1889, along the approval of the Reform of Italian schools system in the abroad, ministerial authorities sought to establish the textbooks authorized in the teaching.  The paper focus on the evolution and discontinuity of the Italian textbook policies until the fascism era, when new textbooks were introduced in the Italian schools into abroad to support a different ideas of “italianess”.