What Catholic educators can learn from the radical Christianity and critical pedagogy of Don Lorenzo Milani

This paper exposes some of the ideas expressed or associated with the work of don Lorenzo Milani and the School of Barbiana and discusses them in the light of the teachings of the gospels. It draws out the ramifications of these ideas for a critical education in the Christian spirit. The focus throughout is on education for social justice.peer-reviewe

Italian signposts for a sociologically and critically engaged pedagogy : Don Lorenzo Milani (1923-1967) and the schools of San Donato and Barbiana revisited

This paper provides a critical exposition and analysis of the work of an acclaimed Italian educator, Lorenzo Milani, and ideas that emerged from his experiences in two Tuscan localities. His work is well known in Italy and many parts of southern Europe. Despite the translations of his works into English and Spanish, in the early 1970s, and their use in sociology of education classes in the United Kingdom, he seems to have had a very limited impact on the Anglo-North American-dominated critical education field. The paper revisits his ideas, in this 90th anniversary year, indicating their contemporary relevance and the signposts they provide for a critically and sociologically engaged pedagogy.peer-reviewe

Lorenzo Milani in our times

This article pays tribute to one of Europe's foremost critical pedagogues, the Tuscan Don Lorenzo Milani, on the ninetieth anniversary of his birth. It highlights the key moments in his life as priest and educator as well as his pedagogical approach directed at challenging the class-conditioned status quo in Italian society and at achieving greater social justice. His was a pedagogy which highlighted the collective dimensions of learning and teaching, pupils being students and educators at the same time, an approach to learning akin to what Paulo Freire would call critical literacy and what contemporary writers would call critical media literacy in the sense of reading and writing the word and the world. His pedagogy entailed a process of reading history against the grain as part of an attempt to generate a culture of non-militarization. All these elements make Don Milani and his student-teachers pedagogues for our times.peer-reviewe