We’re proud to see the publication of a new book co-authored by Maddalena Fragnito, a Doctoral Student in our Post-Publishing research strand. La scuola ha riaperto come dopo una nevicata. Pandemia, classe, inefficienza strategica is co-authored by Marzia Dalfini, Maddalena Fragnito, and Sara Leghissa and published by Nero Editions.
The title roughly translates as: The school reopened like after a snowfall. Pandemic, class, strategic inefficiency.
From the back cover: ‘In response to the strategic inefficiency of a country experiencing the gradual dismantling of its education system and public services in general, this book asserts the possibility of envisioning a different kind of school from within, within “a social and ecological horizon that is more joyful and combative than resignation to the ruin of the education system and the aesthetics and politics of the end of the world that now pervasively propagate everywhere.”‘
The project originated from a militant investigation conducted throughout Italy alongside high school students in schools that had just reopened after the pandemic. The book weaves together their experiences with the state of the Italian public education system, examining the invasion of proprietary technologies in teaching, the pervasive ideology of meritocracy, as well as the mental health of minors and their forms of protest and proposals for how to change and defend public education today.