Giuseppe Lombardo Radice and the teachers’ network in Tessin: Tracing an ‘educational-cultural transfer’ through the pages of L’educatore della Svizzera italiana

From the early 1920s, the border between Italy and Tessin provided fertile ground for pedagogical, didactic, and cultural exchange between the Italian scholar Giuseppe Lombardo Radice and the lively local teachers’ network, which helped enrich his pedagogical perspective even after his break with Giovanni Gentile and the ‘adjustments’ to the 1923 reform of the Italian school system. A critical reading of some articles from the periodical L’educatore della Svizzera italiana [The educator of Italian-speaking Switzerland] allows us to identify two main areas of comparison: the extent to which the local experiences of the scuola serena, in which Lombardo Radice’s conception of school found concrete expression, were valued to appreciate and promote them; and the spread of the Pasquali-Agazzi Method as the pedagogical perspective most suited to consolidating pre-school education in Tessin, to the detriment of the Montessori Method. His ongoing relationship with the world of Tessin, fostered by his friendship with Ernesto Pelloni, provided Lombardo Radice with the opportunity to continue his work across the border, while the Italian school system underwent a process of fascist development.