'Tempo pieno’ (full-time schooling): a key to cultural change. The case of the integrated day in the primary school in Italy from 1971 to 1985.

In an important article reflecting on the history of education in Europe, Dominique Julia argued that "one of the most promising areas of research is certainly the culture of the school". In a broad sense, the culture of the school means a set of rules that define the sanctioned knowledge and behaviour, but also a set of practices including, ways of acting, thinking and working. As many scholars point out, the invention of childhood in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries relates to the rise of formal schooling and the standardized procedures to educate pupils. The concept of school culture is also indicative of the close relationship between what happens outside the classroom and the lessons taught in the school. Thus we can consider the interconnections between school and society: the educational content transmitted to pupils and the learning of social attitudes from the school as well as those which derive from the wider society. A crucial element of a schooled society is time, considered in a wide perspective (duration of school, organization of school time, establishment of timetables). My paper is focused on changes in school time in the Italian primary school from the 60s -70s of the XX century. A profound social and economic transformation modified Italy after the second war world as the country abandoned its traditional rural character and achieved a new industrial profile. This process, full of contradictions, influenced the institutional approach to elementary education as the commitment to schooling for all emerged. The aim of my paper is to raise questions about how this rapidly changing society transformed the school system in Italy in the 70s. I decided to adopt a particular point of view focusing on the use of time. In fact, not by chance, on 24th September 1971 the law n. 820 recognized integrated activities (attività integrative) in the primary school. The act officially stated what local authorities, teachers, parents, had experimented with for many years. By extending the hours of attendance, schools aimed to help pupils face both a new complex culture (new subjects, forms of expression, languages) and the changing needs of families. “Tempo pieno” was not meant to be simply a change in the curriculum, but was conceived as a part of a wide programme of social reform that involved a conception of school as a part of welfare policy. In the extended hours, teachers promoted a new idea of leisure, they tried to cope with social inequality; they suggested new ways to integrate ‘handicapped’ students. Full time schools lasted from 1971 to 1985, when a new reform partially transposed that framework. But the political change of the 90s and the concerns about costs weakened many of the pedagogical results. In conclusion, I underline that the correlation between the new idea of full-time schooling and ideology had become so strong that helped to explain the rise but also the downfall of that experimental model of teaching. My paper is based upon different kinds of sources: books, theoretical essays and speeches produced and disseminated in professional journals by educators and experts; articles in the daily press that allow us to understand the impact that “tempo pieno” produced in public opinion; law and Ministerial circulars (letters); memoirs of teachers, school administrators, parents and students. References Cunningham, Peter. Politics and the Primary Teacher. Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. Damiano, Elio. Adro tempo pieno. La scuola, 1975. ———. , ed. Idee di scuola a confronto: contributo alla storia del riformismo scolastico in Italia. Armando Editore, 2003. Julia, Dominique. “Riflessioni sulla recente storiografia dell’educazione in Europa: per una storia comparata delle culture scolastiche.” Annali di Storia dell’Educazione e delle Istituzioni Scolastiche 3 (1996): 119–47. Lawn, Martin, and Len Barton. Rethinking Curriculum Studies (RLE Edu B). Routledge, 2012. Lowe, Roy. The Death of Progessive Education: How Teachers Lost Control of the Classroom. Routledge, 2007. Milani, Lorenzo, and Scuola di Barbiana. Lettera a una professoressa. Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1967. Walton, Jack, ed. The Integrated Day in Theory and Practice. Ward Lock Educational, 1971.