La Pedagogía Católica Italiana: entre el Positivismo y el Neoidealismo. Notas sobre su presencia en españa (1870-1968)

Abstract

In this article, the authors review the evolution of Italian pedagogy from the perspective of the Catholic tradition, from the time of the Risorgimento in the 19th century to 1968. With this objective, the main lines of Italian pedagogical thought are drawn on the grounds of Catholic heritage that is situated in the middle ground between the positivism that developed in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, and the neo-idealism of Giovanni Gentile that set the course for transalpine philosophy during the first decades of the last century, with important resonances in the fascist educational reform. After drawing this conceptual and intellectual map, the article turns its attention to three referents of Catholic pedagogy for Spain such as the Salesian education of san Juan Bosco, present in our country since the end of the 19th century: the influence of neo-scholasticism that through the psycho-pedagogical orientation of Angelo Gemelli he entered the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, founded in 1920 and inaugurated. The following year, and finally, and after the fall of fascism, in neo-spiritualism that through authors like Michele Federico Sciacca can be understood as the natural evolution of neo-idealism towards more believing and confessional positions.