Giovanni Gentile's Reform and passive revolution. The unitary school as a myth and an alternative

Abstract

Although the category of passive revolution is widely used in other areas of Gramscian studies, it has not played a central role in studies on his pedagogical theory. This article uses it as a heuristic formula, i.e. a general perspective that organises Gramsci’s research from the 1920s and 1930s around the crisis of hegemony and the reconstruction of the bourgeois order. While Gramsci does not explicitly use the term “passive revolution” in his analyses of the school reforms led by Giovanni Gentile in 1922-23 or his proposal for a unified school system, it is true that he does employ the concept. However, it is hypothesised that these reflections are better understood when considered within the historical context of the passive revolution of the 1920s and 1930s, as analysed by Gramsci. The political, economic and educational alternatives of those years – fascism, Americanism and the Ussr – were limited in their ability to overcome the crisis of hegemony. Within this framework, the unitary school emerges as an innovative concept and a myth, aiming to transcend the political and pedagogical limitations of the aforementioned alternatives and empower the subaltern classes in a national and international context of war of positions.

Although the category of passive revolution is widely used in other areas of Gramscian studies, it has not played a central role in educational readings of Gramsci. This article uses it as a heuristic formula, i.e. a general perspective that organises prison research from the 1920s and 1930s around the crisis of hegemony and the recomposition of the bourgeois order. While Gramsci does not explicitly use the term 'passive revolution' in his analyses of the educational reforms led by Giovanni Gentile in 1922–23 or his proposal for a unified school system, it is true that he does employ the concept. However, it is hypothesised that these reflections are better understood when considered within the historical context of the passive revolution of the 1920s and 1930s, as analysed by Gramsci. The political, economic and educational alternatives of those years — fascism, Americanism and the USSR — were limited in their ability to overcome the crisis of hegemony. Within this framework, the unitary school emerges as an innovative concept and a myth, aiming to transcend the political and pedagogical limitations of the aforementioned alternatives and empower the subaltern classes in a national and international context of war of positions.