In 1983 some teachers and head masters from Sicily founded an association "Scuola e Cultura Antimafia" (School and Culture against mafia) leading up to antimafia didactics and to education to democracy.

The power of mafia has been on duty for about 140 years, a too long period indeed for a criminal society. As matter of fact if it were only for this, Sicilian people would have thrown their yoke down for a long time.

This asymmetrical relation of benefit and subjection has developed an authority system. In Sicily the political and social attitudes are fully conditioned by this mentality. Thus mafia lets violence to a part of itself, commonly named Cosa Nostra, in fact it often camouflages complies within lawful authority, so that it needs no violence.

School has been guilty for keeping a mafia mentality: very often the attitudes and the stereotypes of mafia are in the Sicilian ruling class and this class has attended Sicilian schools. In fact there, education to democracy, the education in building a general social feeling and a mind for common good are not traditionally effective. Probably the most important reason for this failure is that in Sicilian schools the textbooks of history do not deal strangely with Sicilian history. It happens not because Italian Government clearly forbids this subject, but because Italian powerful system of publishing textbooks does not actually allow it.

The history of Sicily is different from the Italian history, for instance in ancient times Sicily was Greek and not Latin. After he finishes his studies, a Sicilian studious pupil has learned well enough about the history of Florence and Rome, on the contrary he has read very few or no lines at all of the history of Sicily. Likewise it happens for the other subjects about Sicily. Outdoors school mafia is ready to provide him its turn of mind on society where he lives and of that he is unaware.

When the association "Scuola e Cultura Antimafia" was born, Sicily Region had passed a law a few years before; this law entrusted a task to schools "to form a public spirit against crime of mafia". Sicilian Parliament voted the measure after the shocking news of the killing of the President of Sicily done by mafia. As a matter of fact, the measure was a failure. Many teachers had fear to give effect to it, some of them did not know how and what to do in their classrooms; others were suspicious of the Region and distrust the same law.

Scuola e Cultura Antimafia was constituted as a committee to give effect to this law, and little by little it changed the attitudes of teachers and their professional competence on this field.

Here is the points of view of Association:

• New contents and methods must direct towards the development of a critical awareness of the pupils.

• Mafia can be fought only through education to democracy and people’s awareness. The study of Sicilian country from various angles (history, economics, social sciences, language and so on), and its relationships with other countries, is necessary for this aim.

In 1987 the association has published the text "Didattica antimafia". It was the first book printed about this subject and, as years went by, it collected and accumulated a patrimony of didactic experiences and conceptual elaboration of themselves. Since it was born, it has been publishing the bulletin Scuola e Cultura Antimafia. Since 1991 it has been changed into a periodical review.

The work carried out in schools has shown the effective starting to build a new culture: the antimafia movement, born in Sicily, has found just in the schools its strong points. In 1992 after the killing of the judges Falcone and Borsellino, mafia came up against the hardest reaction of the people. This cannot be compared to the indifference the news of the homicides had in the previous decade.