Educating at the margins: institutionalized childhood in Italy from the late Nineteenth to the early Twentieth century

Abstract

This article examines the condition of marginal childhood between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a historical-critical problem, through a comparison of the theoretical models and pedagogical practices developed by Francesco Paoli, Antonio Gonnelli-Cioni, and Maria Montessori. The historical reconstruction of the methods they adopted aims to highlight how the work carried out in these marginal contexts contributed to challenging the criteria and boundaries of educability. It is precisely in this space of the margin that fundamental themes and tensions of modern education – care and assistance, inclusion and segregation, freedom and obedience – intertwined and at times clashed. From this perspective, the institutionalization of childhood does not appear as a residual space, but as a privileged site of experimentation and transformation, capable of influencing the broader social order.