Losing Minds and Hearts: Ideology, Education, and the Development of Youth Nonconformity Under European Fascisms

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Luiz Francisco Guizzo Gutierrez Osorio (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Teresa Walch

Abstract: 2022 University Libraries Undergraduate Research Award Winner --- This paper explores the successes and failures of European fascist regimes in implementing their methods for the “total education” of youth, diving into the educational policy of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Salazarist Portugal, and Francoist Spain, with a special focus on the German case. It reassesses the challenges and contradictions of fascist education, and the intrinsic failures of these educational models that led to the emergence of dissent among youths, as well as the development of nonconforming subcultures opposed to the hegemonic official ones. I conclude that the structural failures of fascist educational models, rooted in ideological irregularity, contradictory and decentralized policy, and the attempt to control all aspects of youth socialization in ways that conflicted with generational and universal youth values, inevitably created nonconformity. This nonconformity came in several forms and was shaped by social context and class divisions. At times, group behavior developed into broader subcultures that, by rejecting official and doctrinaire youth values, assumed political meaning.

Additional Information

Publication
Honors Project
Language: English
Date: 2022
Keywords
European fascism, educational policy, youth socialization, political socialization, nonconformity

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