Italy Secondaria di secondo grado – classe 5ª (esame di Stato) Human sciences (pedagogy, psychology, anthropology, sociology)

Chapters: 3

1. Pedagogy: 20th century

Key educators · Contemporary education issues

Progressive Education: How Dewey, Montessori, Freinet and Others Changed the Classroom – Around 1900 many thinkers said the old school, with silent rows and learning by heart, did not match how children really learn. Progressive (new or active) education puts the child, experience and real work at the centre. John Dewey taught learning by doing and the school as a small democracy. Maria Montessori built a prepared room where children choose self-correcting materials. Édouard Claparède argued that learning should start from the child's needs and interest. Célestin Freinet used a class printing press, a class newspaper and school letters to make work meaningful. Jacques Maritain and Giovanni Gentile, both important in the same century, kept a strong role for values, structure and the teacher: Maritain wanted the whole person educated, and Gentile's 1923 Italian reform built a firm school system. Together they show a debate that still continues: how much freedom, and how much guidance, should a child have?
Inclusive Education: Disability, Rights, Media, Adult Learning and Simple Research – Today's education asks one big question: how can every learner belong and learn? A school can exclude a child, teach them separately, integrate them into old rules, or truly include them by changing the room and lessons. Disability is not only in the person; barriers in buildings, books and teaching also disable, so inclusive schools remove barriers and write individual plans. Italy closed special classes by law in 1977 and moved towards inclusion; the UN Salamanca Statement (1994) and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) support this worldwide. Multicultural education lets every child's language and customs add to the class. Citizenship and human rights education teaches rights and lets children practise them. Media and technology can help but also create a digital divide. Adult education and care services keep learning going through life. Simple empirical research (a short survey with a fair sample) helps schools check what really works.

2. Sociology

Key sociological concepts

Introducing Society and Sociology – Society is the web of groups and relations we live in. Every person is an individual, yet always part of groups like family, class and village. There is not one society but many, and inside each one people have unequal shares of money, power and respect. Sociology, the scientific study of society, was born in 19th-century Europe when reason, revolution and factories changed life fast. It studies almost every part of social life and works closely with economics, political science, history, psychology and anthropology.

3. Anthropology

Anthropology continued

Culture and Socialisation: How We Learn to Live Together – Culture is the whole way of life that a group learns and shares: its ideas, rules and things. It is learned, not born with us. Culture has three sides: cognitive (what we know and believe), normative (rules for how to behave) and material (tools and objects). Socialisation is the lifelong process by which a baby becomes a member of society by learning this culture. It happens through agencies: family, peer group, school, mass media, and others like work, religion and community.