Figure 1--This photograph was taken in Cucugnano, a coastal village near Rome. This teacher has taken her pupils to the nearby beach for an outing. The boys all wear the smocks required by the school. They only took off their footwear so they could paddle on the beach. The photo is undated, but could have been taken in the 1950s or 60s. An Italian reader tells us, "Really it's a strange situation. I never saw children on the beach wearing their school smocks. Cucugnano is a coastal village, perhaps the teacher suprised the children with a little walk or an excursion to look for sea shells as part of a class project." Click on the image for a fuller discussion.

We do not yet have a great deal of information about Italian school activities. Italian state schools after unification in the late-19th and early-20th century had an important social task in Italy. One report indicates that at the time of unification with the proclamation of the Italian Kingdom that 78 percent of the Italian people were illiterate (1861). This was a much higher proportion than Protestant northern Europe. This was not the only problem. Most Italian families were very poor, especially in the south, and nutrition and hygiene relatively poor. This of course significantly affected children. To address the hygine problem, many schools installed showers so the children could bathe. Thus bathing became a school activity in Italy. Italy is a predominately Catholic country. The Catholic Church has played a major role in Italy's education system. There were religious lessons even in the public schools taught by priests. I'm not sure what the current policy toward religion is in Italian schools. First Comminion was a major event in an Italian child's life. Most Italian children did their First Communion as a part of a school group. The boys and girls dressed up in special outfits for the event. As far as I know, they never wore their school smocks. We note some private schools that had uniforms, had the bnoys wear their uniforms rather than new suits, sometimes with special collars. There may have been other changes such as white socks. The girls as far as we know always had special outfits, even at private schools with uniforms.

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Created: 10:35 AM 7/13/2009
Last updated: 5:21 PM 7/14/2009