The Selection of Elites during the Italian Fascist Period: from Gentile’s Idealism to Bottai’s Eugenics

This paper sets out to analyse the nature and role of the Italian school system during the fascist Ventennio, i.e., the twenty years of fascist rule. In particular, the analysis follows the thread of elite selection in order to examine the characteristics of the Italian youth from 1922 to 1943 by studying primary sources and the literature in this field. Similarly, by highlighting the origins of the close dependence of pedagogy from the dominant ideology in the years of radical reorganization of the school system (the so-called “bonifica fascista”), the paper delineates the move from idealistic selection, nationalism, and Giovanni Gentile’s idea of education of the Spirit to a school system that was meant to select the right people for the regime, based on Giovanni Bottai’s works and influenced by Italian scientists’ eugenics theories.