Were the Eighteen-Eighties a turning point for elementary agricultural training? Educational policy and primary school teachers in Post-Unification Italy

Although the spread of agricultural knowledge played a major role in the expansion of the european primary sector, elementary agricultural education, in Italy in particular, is still an under-researched field. This paper contributes to filling this gap through an analysis of the economic, social and cultural factors behind the expansion of this branch of education during the 1880s. The paper outlines not only the educational policies implemented by the central authority, local bodies and agricultural associations to promote elementary agrarian training, policies that proved to be clearly effective when conducted synergetically, but also the decisive role played in this context by the main protagonists of this educational effort: the primary school teachers.