The impact of the local dimension on the history of teaching profession in Italy

Abstract

In the last decades, local history of schooling has had a fruitful historiographical success in Italy, with several studies and researches on different periods and geographical areas. Moreover, this ‘local turn’ has been characterized by different methodological approaches. Currently, it seems possible to start a historiographical balance. Local history of schooling has decisively contributed in expanding historical-educational knowledges, pointing out problems and issues hidden for what concerns a ‘general’ point of view, offering new keys to interpret national school history and, eventually, suggesting new historiographical categories. In this paper, we will focus our attention on what local school historiography has offered to the expansion of the knowledge on the history of teaching profession. Basing on a wide historiographical reconnaissance on principal recent researches, we will highlight the innovative methodological aspects used and some relevant results which have enriched and deeply renovated the history of teaching profession in Italy.