Nationalisation through Contrasts: «the racial us» and «the colonial us» in the construction of Italian identity at school.

The long process that gradually gave rise to an Italian national sentiment also relied much on a sort of complementary feeling that was essential in identifying and stigmatizing anyone who was not part of the national community. As nationalism evolved in the period between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the identification and stigmatization of both foreigner and enemy, went hand in hand with the invention and attribution of an idealised and glorified national past. These processes of stigmatization actually contributed to reaffirm, 'from the outside', the boundaries of a nation that was still under construction; nevertheless, 'from the inside', they helped to encourage and reinforce the inner bonds of national identity through contrast. This essay deals with two particular issues regarding the role played by school curricula in the complex and indirect process of forming Italian citizens and national identity through contrast, in the period between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first part deals with the diffusion of the idea that the Italian colonisers were conquerors who «civilised» «barbaric and inferior» populations, while the second focuses on the notion of a national «racial» belonging to a «white» or Western community based on hereditary somatic and psychic traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]