Formazione e lavoro nell’opera di don Bosco

This paper considers how St Giovanni Bosco’s nineteenth century creation of vocational laboratories in the Piedmont was an important milestone in the development of Italian work pedagogy. His preventive method was formative because it concerned both single individuals as well as cultivation of human relationships within community contexts. After Don Bosco’s death those first workshops evolved into schools that developed practical work pedagogies that remained faithful to Bosco’s ideals as they responded to the changing needs of the times. Still present within the Salesian vocation school experience are the historical principals that highly value manual work.