CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

The course aims to provide the ability to critically and consciously understand and interpret the historical events that led to the emergence and evolution of the welfare state and welfare policies in Italy and internationally. Through a comparative and long-term perspective, it aims to develop skills and knowledge related to the development of welfare, its potential, and how it can still be a strategic tool today for addressing social challenges, new needs, inequalities, poverty, and economic and cultural stratifications.

Based on the Dublin Descriptors, students should achieve the following outcomes at the end of the course:

Knowledge and understanding: ability to understand the concepts of citizenship, inequality, and marginalization, as well as their evolution; ability to reconstruct the evolution of public and private intervention models in the social sphere; historical knowledge of welfare state models and welfare policies, analyzing their emergence and development—as well as their successes and failures—within the relevant historical contexts;

1. Applied knowledge and understanding: Ability to use acquired skills to: identify types of social hardship and their evolution over time; analyze the causes of social inequalities and the remedies proposed by public and private entities; reconstruct the historical evolution of the welfare state and welfare policies, to identify their strengths and weaknesses on a national and global scale, in order to grasp the potential of different welfare state models and their applicability to the current situation.
2. Making independent judgments: Ability to identify and apply the concepts of welfare state, inequality, welfare, social and welfare policies; Ability to use the most appropriate analytical techniques for understanding social phenomena and their contextualization; Develop critical thinking on the origins and development of the welfare state and the various implementation models on an international scale.
3. Communication skills: Ability to participate in public debate on pressing current social issues and the challenges and potential of today's welfare state, critically reconstructing its evolution, events, and actors, and using the past as an "interpretative key" for the present; ability to prepare reports, essays, and accounts on the history of the welfare state, using professional and scientifically validated methodology.
4. Learning skills: Ability to develop independent projects on the history of the welfare state and welfare policies—in Italy and around the world—between the 19th and 21st centuries, with appropriate selection and access to primary and secondary sources.

Highly recommended. Attendance will allow students to achieve the expected learning outcomes and be actively involved in interactive workshops and independent projects on parts of the program.

For the purposes of the midterm exam, students who have achieved at least 70% attendance at the end of the course are considered to be in attendance.

The course will reconstruct the history of the welfare state and welfare policies through a comparative and long-term perspective: from support for the poor in Elizabethan England to Bismarck's social laws; from the birth of the concept of social security in Roosevelt's America to the totalitarian model, up to the rapid development of the welfare state in the West in the second half of the twentieth century.

The course will also analyze the strategic role of the welfare state in the pressing challenges of the last forty years, characterized by rapid social, economic, and demographic changes that are still ongoing. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, it has played an active and crucial role, continuing to represent a bulwark of security for humanity.

Finally, a focus will be dedicated to the specific theme of legislation and policies for the protection of minors in the twentieth century, including through a reconstruction of the origins and development of social services.

1. Fulvio Conti, Gianni Silei, A Brief History of the Welfare State, Carocci 2022 (3rd edition), ISBN: 9788829015

2. Michela Minesso (ed.), Welfare and Minors. Italy in the European Context of the Twentieth Century, FrancoAngeli 2011, ISBN: 9788856836264, pp. 9-19, 147-184, 285-302.

1. The welfare state has shaped Western civil life. The book reconstructs its history from a comparative and long-term perspective: from assistance to the poor in Elizabethan England to Bismarck's social laws; from the birth of the concept of social security in Roosevelt's America to the path followed by totalitarian states in those years, up to the impetuous development of the welfare state in the West in the second half of the twentieth century. In its third edition, the volume illustrates the paths the welfare state has taken to respond to the challenges of the major social, economic, and demographic changes currently underway. After surviving economic crises and ideological attacks, it has also proven crucial in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, continuing to represent a bulwark of security for humanity.

2. Child welfare policies, the ruling class's initiatives in this regard, regulations, institutional structures, and spending capacity are now at the center of a more general reflection on the transformation and recalibration of welfare, made necessary by the increasingly rapid societal changes that have affected the entire Western world in recent decades. This volume addresses this highly topical issue, entering a field of inquiry that has remained largely unexplored by historians. The origins, development, and characteristics of the social policies promoted in Italy for younger generations during the 20th century are reconstructed through comparison with some of the main welfare systems developed in the rest of Western Europe. In analyzing the Italian case, the following interpretative keys interact: political history (philosophy and initiatives pursued by the national ruling classes), institutional and social history (legislation, new institutions and professions, the role of local authorities, private individuals, and associations), and economic history (the amount of public spending committed).

For those attending class, there will be a midterm written exam on some of the topics covered in class.

The remainder of the syllabus will be presented during an oral exam, including the presentation of in-depth group work on selected sections of the syllabus, previously agreed upon with the instructor. The instructor will also provide reference materials and methodological support for the preparation.

Non-attending students will present the syllabus in its entirety during the final exam. The oral exam will include at least three questions focusing on three course topics, and students must demonstrate adequate understanding, mastery of the topics discussed, and clarity of presentation.

The average duration of the oral exam is 40 minutes.

To ensure equal opportunities and in compliance with applicable laws, interested students may request a personal interview to plan any compensatory and/or dispensatory measures, based on their learning objectives and specific needs. Students may also contact the CInAP (Center for Active and Participatory Integration - Services for Disabilities and/or DSA) contact instructor in their department.

Grading will be based on the following criteria:

Failed

Significant deficiencies and significant inaccuracies in knowledge and understanding of the topics covered. Insufficient analytical and synthesis skills.

Frequent generalizations. Inappropriate use of references.

18-20

Imperfections in knowledge and understanding of the topics covered, which are at a barely adequate level. Analytical and synthesis skills are not sufficiently refined.

Barely appropriate use of references.

21-23

Slightly more than adequate knowledge of the topics covered. Coherent arguments, although not particularly original. Appropriate use of references, at the standard level.

24-26

Good knowledge and understanding of the topics covered. Good analytical and synthesis skills.

Coherent presentation of the topics.

Appropriate use of references, at the standard level.

27-29

More than good knowledge of the topics covered. Remarkable analytical and synthesis skills.

Use of references beyond the standard, through in-depth study of the topics.

30-30L

Excellent knowledge and understanding of the topics covered. Remarkable analytical and synthesis skills.

Use of references well beyond the standard, through significant in-depth analysis.

The First Initiatives to Combat Pauperism

The Problem of the Poor between the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolutions

Social Reforms and the Labor Question in the Early Nineteenth Century

The Bismarckian Model

Mutualism, Welfare Policies, and Labor Legislation

Liberals and Socialists between the Belle Époque and the Great War

Social Policies from the War to the 1929 Crisis

The New Deal and the Concept of Social Security

The Totalitarian Welfare State

The Roots of Social-Democratic Welfare

Beveridge's Turn: Toward the Welfare State

The Construction of the Welfare State: Social Security and Assistance from 1945 to 1973

Protection "from the Cradle to the Grave"

In Search of Universalism

Social Security Systems in Scandinavian Countries and the United Kingdom in the 1950s

The Expansion of Social Security in the 1960s

The National Health Service

New Social Needs and the Broadening of the Boundaries of Welfare: Work, Housing, Education

The Acceleration of Reformism in the 1960s

Social Policies Put to the Test in 1968/A Review

From Welfare Optimism to Welfare Pessimism: The Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s

The Emergence of the Pension Question

National Health Services and the Problem of Sustainability

The Failure of Keynesianism and the Welfare Crisis

The Turning Point of 1989

The Decline of the Fordist Model

The Storm of COVID-19

21st-Century Welfare and the Challenges of the Global Risk Society

Welfare and Minors in the 20th Century

The Origins and Development of Social Services