Antonio Gramsci and Giovanni Gentile's educational reform. Passive revolution as a criterion of historical-educational interpretation

Abstract

Starting from the passive revolution formula, the article theoretically addresses the educational issue in the Prison Notebooks. Central to the new Gramscian studies, the passive revolution formula has not played a significant role in educational inquiries of Gramsci’s writings. Instead of isolating the educational topic from the conceptual plot of the Prison Notebooks, the article seeks to articulate the pedagogical question with central thematic nodes of the Gramscian theory in light of the oxymoron passive revolution. In this way, the passive revolution is assumed as a heuristic formula, that is, as a general perspective that organizes (in different senses and times) the prison investigation around the crisis of hegemony and recomposition of the order. After interpreting a series of Gramscian concepts, such as hegemony, subaltern classes, the integral State and intellectuals under the prism of passive revolution, the analysis of the educational reform of Giovanni Gentile (1922-23) is addressed in the Prison Notebooks. It is considered, as a hypothesis, that in Gramsci’s reflection this reform constitutes the educational chapter of the analysis of fascism as an attempt at passive revolution. Among the conclusions, it is argued that from the analytical complexity of the Gentilian reform in the Prison Notebooks it is possible to derive a criterion for the historical-educational interpretation of educational reforms.