Einaudi and Cooperative Education Association (MCE). Traces of a project for the elementary school (1966-67)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show the editorial relationship between the Einaudi publishing house and the Cooperative Education Association (MCE) during the second half of the Sixties. The members of the Association were looking for an editor willing to spread their pedagogical instances for the renewal of the Italian school and they found it in Einaudi. Thanks to the study of the correspondence and the documentation preserved in the Giulio Einaudi Editore Historical Archive, it has been possible to analyze a project of textbooks for the elementary school, made in collaboration with relevant members of the Association such as Gianni Rodari, Mario Lodi, Giuseppe Tamagnini and Bruno Ciari. The collections were never published, in part for financial reasons, but also because of the rising debate around the textbooks. The opinion of the Association in the late Sixties was changed: the point was not to renew the textbooks but to abolish them. Understanding the reasons of the end of this project might help to clarify the pedagogical impact of the cultural and social changes of that period, the relationship between education and politics. Moreover, it is not by chance that from the ashes of this project took shape The wrong country (Il paese sbagliato), a masterpiece written by Mario Lodi destined to become a classic for the history of education.