Italian
INDIRE celebrates the role of schools and women in Italian education, on the occasion of the Centenary of the Institute (1925–2025)
Venice Mestre – “School as a laboratory. Female-oriented pedagogies”, is the immersive multimedia exhibition that will be hosted at M9 – Museum of the 20th Century, in the multimedia room M9 Horizons, on the second floor of the Museum, starting from May 22 to September 8, 2025.
The exhibition, promoted by INDIRE – National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research, on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the Institute (1925-2025), continues its itinerant journey landing in the spaces of M9, after a small preview at the Didacta Italia event in Florence.
Through an immersive set-up and an activist narrative, the exhibition aims to underline the fundamental role of the school not only as a place of literacy, but as a social institution capable of representing present-day life. Education is presented as an authentic “laboratory” of individual and collective emancipation, a dynamic space for new experiences and personal growth.
The mass school did not have as its sole purpose mere literacy, but, especially in its more advanced pedagogical reflections, it has always had further aims, especially those linked to an activist vision, according to which it constitutes a true social institution representing current life. Education in this sense has been and is a real ‘laboratory’ of individual and social emancipation with the primary aim of opening the way to new experiences and enhancing all the opportunities necessary for the complete development of the individual. The exhibition aims to pay tribute to the Institute and its history, focusing at the same time on the specific theme of the decisive female contribution, also well documented by the founder of INDIRE, Giuseppe Lombardo Radice.
The multimedia story pays homage to the female protagonists who have deeply influenced the history of Italian pedagogy: from the teachers active in the most remote areas of the country, to the pioneers of education such as Giuseppina Pizzigoni, the sisters Rosa and Carolina Agazzi, Maria Montessori, Alice Hallgarten Franchetti, Maria Maltoni, Gisella Galassi Ricci, Margherita Zoebeli, and Idana Pescioli.
Visual storytelling moves between these biographical and professional adventures, in which the feminine is confronted with complex realities linked both to the linguistic, cultural, and social differences characterizing the unitary nation of the beginnings between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, and to the demands placed during the transition from the fascist authoritarian regime to democracy, as well as in the face of the new consumer society and media, with a national and international perspective.
Further focus is dedicated to the role of archives – physical and digital – as fundamental tools for the preservation of memory and for the construction of the school of the future.
At the conclusion of the exhibition, on September 8 at 4 PM, the round table discussion “Feminine Pedagogies: Dialogue among Cultural Institutions” will take place, bringing together all the partners involved in the production of the exhibition for a discussion on the educational value of heritage and its use in school teaching.
“With this exhibition, we celebrate the Centenary of the Institute, which is the oldest research institute of the Ministry of Education, but also the crucial role that the school has had, and continues to have, in the cultural and civil growth of our country – highlighted the President of INDIRE, Francesco Manfredi-. ‘School as a laboratory. Feminine pedagogies’ is a tribute to the many women who often, away from the spotlight, have contributed to innovating education and promoting an inclusive and participatory vision of knowledge. Finally – President Manfredi concluded – on the initiative of Minister Valditara, we have launched a concrete project to promote gender equality and counter any form of oppression. The school must be a place of growth, awareness, and respect: for this reason, we will involve school staff and students in a path of responsibility and active participation. INDIRE, today as yesterday, is committed to safeguarding these values and projecting them into the future, so that the school remains a engine of change, openness, and democracy”.
“We are happy to renew the long-standing collaboration with INDIRE, a strategic partner of M9 for a decade now. The immersive exhibition that opens today, dedicated to the many, significant, and profound contributions that women have made to the national enterprise of educating and alphabetizing a population that was largely semi-literate in the aftermath of the Unification, allows the Museum to relaunch its primary activity of educating the students, the citizens of tomorrow,” stated Serena Bertolucci, Director of M9 – Museum of the 20th Century. “Like the great women of the last century who are the protagonists of the exhibition, Maria Montessori, Rosa and Carolina Agazzi, Giuseppina Pizzigoni, Rosa Maltoni, who dedicated their lives to improving the living conditions of the children of yesterday, today M9 is increasingly committed to helping schools in the transmission of historical knowledge that does not always find a place in school textbooks. Thanks to this exhibition, and thanks to the partnership with Indire, M9 relaunches a message of inclusion and political recognition of the female contribution to the cultural growth of our country, yesterday as today”.
The initiative is carried out in collaboration with numerous cultural and educational institutions, including, in addition to M9, AIPH Italian Association of Public History, International Association DiCultHer, Municipal Library M. Maltoni in Impruneta, Gambalunga-Rimini Civic Library and Photographic Archive of CEIS, CIRSE, Sorelle Agazzi Study Center, Florence Art Editions, Giovanni Michelucci Foundation, Hallgarten-Franchetti Foundation Villa Montesca Study Center, Idana Pescioli Onlus Foundation, Tancredi di Barolo Foundation, MCE Educational Cooperation Movement, MUDESC, MuSEd, Pizzigoni Opera, National Montessori Opera and SIPSE.
