The “ignored martyr”. The kindergarten teacher at the dawn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

In Italy, the limited attention paid by nineteenth-century governments to early childhood education fostered an enduring conception of kindergartens as basic care facilities rather than educational institutions and delayed the definition of the professional, economic, and legal status of kindergarten teachers. The article sheds light on the effects of this policy orientation by examining
the condition of acute precariousness in which these teachers still found themselves in the early 1900s. In line with recent historiographical approaches, which call for moving beyond the analysis of institutional sources, the study draws on a body of evidence that has been only partially explored by scholars, namely educational journals for teachers.