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2 The Conquest of Youth: an Educational Crusade in Flanders during the Interbellum Period* M. Depaepe & F. Simon In Europe between the two World Wars, youth constituted a notable arena for the manifestation of social polarizations. From the 1920s on, the political scene shifted markedly to the right: theories of the New Order proclaimed the failure of parliamentary democracy, and in Italy Fascism (Mussolini in 1922) and in Germany Nazism (Hitler in 1933) acquired real political power. In both countries, an authoritarian state was established and war was proclaimed against the Red Peril of Communism. The youth, as the future cornerstone of the ideology and the regime, was assigned a central part in this process. Groupings attached to the party, such as the Giuventà fascista and the Hitlerjugend, took advantage of the romantic-nationalist roots of the youth movement and developed a resolute cult of leadership and uniforms (Koon 1985; Kock 1979; Stachura 1981; Heideking, Depaepe & Herbst 1997). The same trend also developed in other European countries within the framework of the youth movements. Apart from more or less comparable Fascist organizations, which eventually clashed with the earlier established “red” (or Socialist) and “blue” (or Liberal) youth associations, the European youth work of the interbellum period was obviously strongly encouraged by the Catholic Church. By means of “Catholic Action”, the Church was turned into an anti-secular bastion by Pius XI (1922-1939). With its doctrine of divine revelation, the Catholic Church tried to convert as many “souls” as possible to what it perceived as the only universally and absolutely valid Truth. Although Catholic ideology cannot really be put on a par with the extreme forms of ideological “enticements” of Fascism and Nazism, it is still undeniable that the Catholic Church also launched an offensive at that time to mobilize the “masses” (Balthazar 1994; Fabre & Caillavet 1994). By means of numerous mass organizations – for adults as well as youth – the Church waged war against “impious” Communism with a virtually unprecedented triumphalistic thirst for conquest. Hence * Originally published in: F. SIMON (ed.), Liber Amicorum Karel De Clerck (Gent, C.S.H.P., 2000) 19-42. Part I. Starting from the Belgian Case – from Schooling to Educationalization 36 the slogan, much used at the time, “Rome or Moscow” (Latu 1946). In essence, the Church raved against the decline in morals that seemed to have started in the Roaring Twenties. Catholic Action was embedded in the acceleration of the process of massification (universal franchise, compulsory education, compulsory military service, mass press circulation, and standardized products) that had been in progress since the end of the 19th century. Ideas of progress and emancipation went hand in hand with an irrational fear of insurrection by the masses and of inevitable cultural decline. In daily life, different techniques were used to influence the masses. Particularly during the economic crisis of the 1930s, with its breakdown in the equilibrium between economics and politics, new methods were sought to regulate the “mass” phenomenon. In such a period of incertitude, it is not surprising that people felt threatened in their daily lives and had little ideological resistance to movements that offered them shared group experiences (Reynebau 1994, 12-73). In Flanders in Belgium, where Catholics dominated, common decency was felt to be threatened by ongoing secularization. This trend was seen as a result of the change in the Zeitgeist that occurred after the First World War, to which the contact with other cultures, not in the least by “unbridled” soldiers, had amply contributed (De Borchgraeve 1999). The discourse on increasing moral decay served a grandly orchestrated pedagogical offensive, inside as well as outside the school. In the core of the family, the various youth organizations, and the school, there was a distinct preference for authoritarian education centred on “moral values”. This resulted in a kind of feminization of domestic education and a masculinization of public life that were readily adopted by the youth movements for girls and boys (Simon 1994b, 178-195). A whole army of spiritual caretakers, physicians, hygienists, psychologists, and social workers was ready or getting ready to receive and counsel the young people – especially the boys! – throughout their “strenuous” years of youth. This gave birth to a myriad of books of the type “How Do I Become a Man?” (Foerster 1920). Moreover, psychopedagogical expertise increasingly acquired an institutional basis and was scientifically legitimized in the framework of youth psychology and the development of pedagogical theories. For instance, it is striking how the experimental mainstream, apparently standing surety...

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