Francesco Tonucci

Interview

• "Television and the Internet and children’s rights" (Turin, 10-04-1997)

Biography

Born in Fano in 1941, Francesco Tonucci graduated in Pedagogy from the Catholic University of Milan. He then worked as an elementary school teacher, and in 1966 became a researcher at the Psychology Institute of the CNR (Italian National Research Council). Since 1982, he has been head of the Psychopedagogy department of the Institute, which is carrying out a programme of environmental education (ANDREA-Archivio Nazionale di Documentazione e Ricerca sull'Educazione Ambientale) which aims to create a data base for, and created by, children.

His research interests centre around the cognitive development of children, infantile thought and behaviour, and the relationship between child cognition and educational methodology.

He has long been interested in the relationship between children and the cities, and his project La città dei bambini (The City of Children) (città_dei_bambini@rpp.psicoped.rm.cnr.it), established in Fano in 1991, has created a laboratory which is considered a new way of conceiving the city with the child as a point of reference.

As Tonucci states:" La città dei bambini project proposes that the philosophy of city management be modified, using the child as a parameter. It is not a question of creating new initiatives, opportunities or structures for children, of defending the rights of a weak social component, nor of improving services for children. The idea is for the administration to lower its point of view to the height of a child, so that none of its citizens are abandoned, and to accept the difference of children as a guarantee of all diversity. If the city is more adapted to children it will be more adapted to everyone."

The project has been a great success, and in 1995 Tonucci was appointed as a consultant to the mayor of Palermo. A working group has also been established to co-ordinated and support administrations which join the project. In 1997 he was appointed president of the Italian "Television and Minors Committee", to draw up a self-regulating code for private and public service broadcasters, signed in 1997. Francesco Tonucci is also a member of the scientific committee of the WWF (http://www.wwf.it/chisiamo/chi.html ).

Bibliography

Among his publications:

• La città dei bambini, 1996, Bari, Laterza.
• Guida al giornalino di classe, 1980, Bari, Laterza.
• La valutazione come lettura dell'esperienza, 1978,Bologna, il Mulino.
• A tre anni si fa ricerca, 1976, Firenze.
• La ricerca come alternativa all'insegnamento,1972, Firenze, LEF.

Under the pseudonom Frato, he has also published: Con gli occhi del bambino (Milano 1981), Bambini si nasce (1987); Bambini si diventa (1989), La solitudine del bambino (Firenze 1995).