Participation, change and promotion of the child in the experimentation of full-time education. The case of Groppello primary school (Cassano d’Adda 1969-1985)

At the beginning of the 1970s, a group of teachers inspired by Mario Lodi’s educational thought and the MCE (Cooperative education movement) ideas created, in Cassano d’Adda near Milan, a very innovative experimentation in the local primary school. The Groppello d’Adda experience brought forth for more than 30 years an alternative idea of school and educational design. The local archives keep a large array of uncatalogued materials documenting the experience. These documents are very interesting because of their depiction of a school conception consistently defined as horizontal, inclusive and aimed at the promotion of the child, and for the variety and richness of pedagogical instruments and models proposed. The article aims at showing, through this case study, the historical-social conditions of the birth of Decreti Delegati in Italy in the Seventies, and the theoretical and practical inspirations leading to the inversion of the relation between school and society. At the end, the article will illustrate how the original concept at the basis of Decreti Delegati was larger than a simple introduction of representatives in the school governance.