Becoming Italians at school through the cultural and natural heritage

The article is an introduction to a monographic issue of HECL, which collects articles aiming at highlighting the manner in which cultural and natural heritage has been transmitted at school and understanding if ad how it has contributed to the definition of the idea of citizenship which has characterized Italian society during the first century of its history after national unification. The articles are guided by three thematic poles – school, cultural heritage and construction of the national identity – cover a wide chronological time span, comprised between the early post-unification period (1861) until the aftermath of the Second World War, and they concentrate on the elementary and popular school levels