Civic Education in The Italian Primary School Textbooks: A Systematic Review and Discourse Analysis

Francesco Pigozzo - Daniela Martinelli, Civic Education in the Italian primary school textbooks: a systematic review and discourse analysis The 92/2019 Law on Civic Education has boosted a new wave of civic “labels”, “keywords” and “activities” inside the Italian textbooks of almost all disciplinary areas in the school curriculum at all levels. Yet this is a highly questionable way to help teachers introducing a civic turn into the whole learning process. In this contribution we will discuss the results of a systematic review of textbooks officially adopted by Italian primary schools in the first year of implementation of the new Law (2020/2021). We scrutinised contents, language and structural features explicitly related to Civic Education both in self-standing booklets and in volumes of all other disciplines, for pupils aged from 6 to 11, in a qualitative discourse analyses perspective that allows us to highlight some recurring epistemological flaws in the whole editorial offer available. We argue they particularly hinder key pedagogical objectives about sustainability, participation and reality-congruent agency.