The teaching of gender history: some notes on the Italian context

Abstract

This contribution attempts to give an overall picture of the didactics of gender history in Italy. It addresses the regulatory aspect, the broader context of cultural policies and public debate (in which history and historians appear largely marginalised), the presence of innovative teaching tools introduced with the aim of overcoming the rigidity of textbooks and bringing the most recent results of historiographic research into the teaching of gender history. Above all, the Italian Society of Historians (founded in 1989) is involved in teacher training. Educational projects are also developed by universities, study centres, associations and various cultural institutions, including the network of Historical Institutes of the Resistance. The text also examines a recent journal monograph - Ricerche Storiche, 2 (2019) - dedicated to the teaching of gender history. What emerges is the fragmentary nature of the framework and the initiatives, the lack of take-up by institutions, especially in relation to the training and updating of teachers. In the Italian political and cultural debate, the history of gender relations always appears as one particular story among many, and not as one of the great founding questions of historical reconstruction itself.