The Protest of 1968 at the University of Rome’s Faculty of Education. Analogies and peculiarities of the student revolt in education

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to reconstruct the occupation of the Magistero faculty of La Sapienza University in Rome in 1968, investigating the social, cultural, and political factors that, in the field of pedagogical education, contributed to the fractures that indelibly marked the future development of the Italian university. Occupied as early as 1966, a year that can be considered a forerunner in the history of the Italian student movement and which, following the tragic killing of Paolo Rossi at the hands of fascist students, inevitably marked its political division, the Roman Magisterium faculty was also at the center of the unrest of the following two years. The task of this work will be to examine, through a wide range of sources, such as archive documents, newspaper and magazine articles, and interviews with direct witnesses, both the critical aspects of the academic world and the socio-cultural aspects that determined the beginning of this political season, highlighting, in addition to the factors common to the various faculties, the peculiar criticalities of the teaching world.