Resumen de Education and Democracy in Italy after the Second World War: The Experience of a Non-Governmental Cultural Association
As Italians faced the prospect of reconstruction after the Second World War, they immediately faced several economic, social and cultural issues. The reduction of illiteracy and the spread of education among citizens rapidly became a priority. The expansion of popular literacy had been in progress since the second half of the nineteenth century, but it came to a halt with the heavy devastation of war. Alongside the Italian State, several non-governmental cultural organizations were also working for literacy and adult education. Among them, the Unione Nazionale per la Lotta contro l’Analfabetismo (UNLA) (the National Union for the Fight Against Illiteracy) was perhaps the most representative because of its wide-ranging activity, which it carried out in a definite way from 1949 through ‘centres of popular culture’ (Centri di cultura popolare). The immediate target of UNLA was the enlargement of literacy among worker classes, but its ultimate aim was building a new civic consciousness for a fully democratic society. UNLA’s activity, based on voluntarism and spontaneous popular participation, had to face governmental concern that adult education might fall under the influence of political and social forces which were not fully aligned with the model of Western society.
