Educational Reflective Practices

Gender-based violence in Italy is a figure of very high criminal and social alarm. The rationale that supports the analysis in this article is that sociocultural work for the prevention of gender violence should be done primarily in education through the education of mothers who raise young males. The literature points to the role that the quality of primary attachment (mother-child relationship) plays in building healthy and balanced relationships in adulthood; having experienced specific attachment styles during childhood can constitute a prejudice in the ability to exercise healthy affectivity in adulthood. These observations are supported by evidence from studies that have found higher levels of aggression and violence, physical and psychological, in couples where one or both partners had an insecure attachment (Wilson et al., 2013). This reflection, far from wanting to appear as an analysis aimed at attributing a sort of “stigma of guilt” to mothers, has the aim, on the contrary, of underlining how childhood represents a very delicate terrain. Hence the usefulness of investing in research and interventions in the field of maternal empowerment for the development of resources, especially of mothers in conditions of poor economic and cultural possibilities, with the aim of carrying out positive actions to change their lives and therefore more protective, in biopsychosocial terms, also of the children.