Women’s activism, vocational training and cultural exchanges between East and West. The case of Cold War Italy (1948-1962) in S. Zimmermann et al. (eds.) Through the Prims of Gender and Work. Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, 19th and 20th Centuries, Amsterdam, Brill, 2023.

Women’s vocational training was a key topic in women’s debates in Cold War Italy. Between the 1950s and 1960s, women started to mobilize around the reform of the secondary school system and vocational training schemes in order to create new opportunities for women workers in line with the new phase of industrial development. Women unionists, along with women MPs and officials of women’s associations, played a crucial role in pushing for a less gender-stereotypical system of vocational and technical high schools as well. Drawing on archival material, conference proceedings, parliamentary speeches, and women’s and union magazines, this chapter analyzes the role played by Italian women in pushing for a more inclusive and less stereotypical form of vocational training in Cold War Italy. It takes into consideration the period between 1945 and 1968, which saw widespread debate and mobilization around the issue of vocational training and which has never been properly investigated. The chapter connects different scales (local, national, and international) of political engagement, highlighting the circulation of ideas on vocational training in Cold War Europe. The relevance of the Italian case in the Cold War context is demonstrated by the different international actors, from both the West and the East, who participated in Italian conferences as well as the organization of international congresses in Italian cities.