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Franco Frabboni, professor emeritus of General Pedagogy at the University of Bologna, has passed away at the age of 89. Master and innovator of Italian pedagogy, Frabboni was among the first students of Giovanni Maria Bertin, after whom the Department of Educational Sciences is now named.
Dean of the Faculty of Education Sciences for two terms, he participated in the creation of a “Bologna school” of pedagogy, first and foremost, with colleagues and friends Piero Bertolini, Andrea Canevaro and Mario Gattullo. He helped found the Free University in Bressanone, a model trilingual university. He was also President of the Italian Society of Pedagogy (SIPED) and in 2016 he was awarded the SIPED Lifetime Achievement Award.
A legacy of studies and books
He leaves an important legacy of studies, books and lessons. A militant intellectual, belonging to a left open to the Catholic world, he was the creator of a democratic, secular and militant pedagogy: open to enhancing the demands of freedom and anti-authoritarianism, dialogue and mediation, complexity and collaboration while respecting all positions.
Hence, among the further topics addressed, we recall the careful and ongoing reflection on active citizenship and on the multiple aspects of the teaching/learning process: addressed on every occasion through the lens of a democratic pedagogy while thinking, in parallel, of empirical research conceived as a desire to innovate and transform, maintaining high scientific rigor and attention to epistemological and methodological issues. There are many publications that he has created or in which he has participated.
The memory of Davide Ferrari
“With Franco Fraboni, one of the greatest pedagogists in Europe disappears. He was a protagonist of the great season inaugurated after the struggles of ’68 and the early ’70s, a season of very high pedagogy in search of inclusion and equality of opportunities” – thus Davide Ferrari, co-director of Riforma della scuola, the magazine that Franco Fraboni tenaciously fought to keep alive after the dissolution of the PCI.
– “Frabboni was the original scholar of the educational dimension not only in schools but in the surrounding world, of social life, of work, of the media.
From the experience he had gained in the field as a teacher, Fraboni was able to develop a modern vision of education and knowledge.
I want to remember Franco’s extraordinary coherence and continuity, both in university life and research, and in his militant commitment to a school of progress, of the liberation of intelligence”.
Mayor Lepore’s condolences
The mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore, also expresses his condolences to the family, colleagues and friends of Franco Frabboni on behalf of the municipal administration. “Bologna will remember him for his intense research and dissemination of educational sciences and his battles for modern teaching,” the Municipality of Bologna said in a statement.
The funeral in Borgo Panigale
Franco Frabboni leaves behind his wife Marialuisa and his daughters Laura and Barbara. The funeral will be on Monday 20 May at 11.30 in the parish of Santa Maria Assunta in via Marco Emilio Lepido 58 in Borgo Panigale.
